LaxTV Forums | A Forum About The MCLA

For all the new parents out there, here's one more thing to worry about.

TV Really Might Cause Autism
A Slate exclusive: findings from a new Cornell study.
By Gregg Easterbrook

http://www.slate.com/id/2151538

Cliff:

Thanks for posting this link - It is especially relevant because my wife is expecting our 4th child within the next two weeks. While our children (8/6/3.5)watch very little TV (about 60 - 90 minutes on week days[30 minutes while eating b-fast and around 30-45 right before dinner]), this appears to be a very interesting study to which I will pay attention.

What is missing is the caustive relationship, but there's enough of a corroboration (especially when the weather data is included) to make sure the newbie doesn't get to watch tv.

Again - thanks.

Rob

The main problem with this is that it is an observational study. Which is the case for most human studies. Its impossible to make a conclusion on these types of studies because there are so many other variables that go into it.

A good example of this is below.

They found that as cable television became common in California and Pennsylvania beginning around 1980, childhood autism rose more in the counties that had cable than in the counties that did not.

But is cable the only thing different between the counties. One might guess that cable would come to urban areas first then to rural areas. So you could then say that living in an urban area will increase your childs chance of getting autism. I guess in the end what it comes down to is just take these types of studies with a grain of salt. Because for all I know it could be correct, but until they try an induce autism in a healthy population of children using TV we will never know for sure. And we all know that will not be happening any time soon.

It seems this study is simply drawing a correlation between the two, and as is taught in every Psychology 101 class, correlation is not causation. Further, if you look at some of the symptoms of infant autism, such as:

-Appears indifferent to surroundings
-Appears content to be alone, happier to play alone
-Displays lack of interest in toys
-Displays lack of response to others
-Does not point out objects of interest to others (called protodeclarative pointing)
-Marked reduction or increase in activity level

These symptoms seem rather similar to most people who have been watching television for an extended period of time. This does not mean however that people should allow their kids to watch television all hours of the day, which is common knowledge. What is interesting to me is the weather problem. Could it be that these kids are developing more slowly because of lack of interaction with others due to the weather keeping them inside? Also, in the actual study it states that when research was done on a large Amish population, less than 10 children exhibited autism symptoms, when they expected a few hundred to do so. This however was a case study, so it is tough to draw any real conclusions which can be generalized to the entire population.

You guys should come hang out in my Media and Children class. From what I have heard this year you would never want to let your child watch TV again. TV is such a great babysitter though!!!

Dubbs does have good points about the correlation is not causation point, but there are so many studies that say the same thing......

I used to read several research papers that would occasionally end with a comment like "...this needs further research."