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TV Really Might Cause Autism
Journal written by Alien54 (180860) and posted by
CowboyNeal
on Tue Oct 17, 2006 03:23 AM
from the cause-and-effect dept.
from the cause-and-effect dept.
Alien54 writes "Cornell University researchers are reporting what appears to be a statistically significant relationship between autism rates and television watching by children under the age of 3. The researchers studied autism incidence in California, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington state. 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. They further found that in all the Western states, the more time toddlers spent in front of the television, the more likely they were to exhibit symptoms of autism disorders. The Cornell study represents a potential bombshell in the autism debate."
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OMG! BAN TV! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:OMG! BAN TV! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:OMG! BAN TV! (Score:5, Funny)
Spectacularly bad science (Score:5, Interesting)
children diagnosed with autism in 1999-2000 with the similar figure for 2003-2004, one sees that
over those four years the reported number has more than doubled.
Does anybody really think that the rates of autism really doubled in this time period. Isn't it far more likely that the rate of diagnosis simply went up. What would cause parents to become aware of this unusual condition called autism? Maybe they saw a segment about it on TV?
Isn't it simply possible that autism rates are correlated with TV watching because many americans get much of their information about the larger world by watching TV, and therefore the higher the rates of TV watching (determined in this study by looking at cable installation rates and precipitation rates - people watch more TV when it's rainy out ) mean higher rates of awareness of autism as a condition to ask your child's doctor about? So now, instead of being diagnosed as retarded, the child is diagnosed as autistic because the child's parents saw a segment about autism on cable TV on a rainy day.
Re:Spectacularly bad science (Score:5, Interesting)
Besides, I think if your 8-year old child couldn't speak, or make eye contact, and generally preferred banging his/her hands to interacting with you in any fashion, you'd probably know something was wrong (even without Donahue telling you, or whatever the hell people watched in the early 80s), and get them to a doctor.
The first few years of life are pretty critical for neural development; a lot of 'thermostats' in the brain are set during this time, and it really isn't that hard to imagine that activities performed for several hours a day might have some influence on these processes.
Re: Spectacularly Annoying (Score:4, Interesting)
1. Something is WRONG with your child when they are autistic. You know there is because she/he doesn't act normally. A minimally responsible parent figures out what it is.
2. The medical condition of autism is well-defined. It doesn't just visit the child like a common cold. http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/autism.cfm [nih.gov] and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism [wikipedia.org]
3. "retarded" is not a medical condition. That is the social term for a host of developmental problems.
people watch more TV when it's rainy out
This is the West. It doesn't rain much... There's no excuse for watching more TV other than babysitting your child for you. I'll go further than that and say there is no reason for children to watch television until at least 5. But this means parents have to raise their children. So it's an unpopular opinion.
Please consider your opinions in this matter as poorly constructed as the science you claim is flawed.
Re:OMG! BAN TV! (Score:5, Interesting)
Would that be so bad really? I gave up on TV years ago and haven't really missed it. The decent stuff comes out on dvds anyway, the occasional funny/interesting clip can be found on youtube and for everything else there is bittorrent.
Imo TV is just a way to sell ads - and apparently that can be accomplished by showing low quality, stupid, "show-me-your-tits", "the-sky-is-falling" undiluted crap... or maybe I'm just getting old.
*posting anonymously as not to be identified as being old and angry:)
Re:OMG! BAN TV! (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you didn't. You still watch TV, you just use different hardware. This has some advantages (fewer ads, less 'TV network' crap), but it's still TV.
Re:OMG! BAN TV! (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, that's a little petty, but here's a real difference - people without TVs choose what to watch, when to watch it. People with TVs so often just sit down in front of it and then vegitate, accepting whatever crap is shovelled to them. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there (yourself included?) who will then jump up and shout "But I only turn it on when there's something I really want to watch!" The difference is that people without TVs choose to watch less - they are generally more selective. Speaking for myself, I have a lot of fun times with my wife and daughter - playing games, reading books, talking. I kind of feel sorry for people who miss out on that sort of thing because "There's something really good on TV".
Re:OMG! BAN TV! (Score:5, Interesting)
My set was broken and so I asked my wife to call the TV-guy. She said, you watch it more than I so why don't you call him?
After a couple of months, when still nobody had called, I ditched it and put a bookshelf in its place.
Never regretted it.
More sex, more talking, more reading, more workouts, more movie-going, more hiking, more biking, more everything.
TV is really time-stealer and when you at last are hooked to a TV-show, the idiots cancel it!
Re:OMG! BAN TV! (Score:5, Funny)
Did you say "More sex"?
Oh shit - don't you DARE let that one get out into the general public - the empire might collapse!
Re:OMG! BAN TV! (Score:4, Funny)
Chief Wiggum: *lifts blanket and looks* "Well I'll be damned!"
Re:OMG! BAN TV! (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's a thought experiment. We have three populations, P1, P2, and P3, which all have the same constituency of N, A, pA. As the children age, we can re-categorize pA children as either N or A. P1 will be our control group: they will interact with society and watch a little bit of television. P2 will be like P1, but be exposed to more TV. P3 will model lazy parenting: the children won't get much social interaction, and the only thing they have to pass the time is TV, so they'll get a lot of it.
If watching too much TV can promote autism, P2 will have many pA -> A. OTOH, if it's a lack of exposure to social interaction that causes underdevelopment of brain circuitry that regulates social interaction, P2 should resemble P1 and P3 will have many pA -> A.
Even if there is a very strong temporal link between two variables, correlation and causation are tricky. You can't always say, "The reason that my alarm clock goes off in the morning is because the sun rises in the sky," even if you can point to some region where the sun is obscured by the terrain and people don't use alarm clocks.
I would love for non-interactive, advertisement-soaked, eye-candy-filled, dumbed-down media to be less prevalent. When Internet access began to be ubiquitous, I got excited, but then I saw and heard all of the media companies wanting to turn the Internet into a new form of TV.
I know, my examples have bad analogies, poor metaphors, logical flaws, et caetera. But I hope someone gets my point. Lots of people think "pot makes you stupid" -- but maybe it's just that stupid people enjoy pot more than intelligent people do, which could explain statistics.
Basically, there are correlations, relationships, and patterns EVERYWHERE. However, it's very rare that someone knows exactly WHY something is happening. If we knew exactly how something happened, usually it would make it trivial to manipulate.
Re:OMG! BAN TV! (Score:4, Funny)
Unless you're an attorney specializing in tort law. Then you know exactly why. And the answer is whoever has the deepest pockets. Now how long until the first class action lawsuit is filed against the cable companies? :)
Re:OMG! BAN TV! (Score:4, Informative)
There is something fundamentally different about the experience when the network dictates when you watch, and dictate what you watch during the commercial breaks. How often do people hang around after the show just because? How many people have a 20 to 30 minutes to kill before the show so they turn the TV on early and watch whatever is on in the mean time?
I think a majority of people who "watch TV" basically just sit down and accept whatever is on. It's a distinctly different activity then pre-recording a show using a DVR or VCR, or watching a file on your PC or on DVD. Some TVs show do generally have worthwhile entertainment that can spark intellectual discussions with friends and family, perhaps even some introspect. But viewing it on the networks schedule you map out a larger portion of your time, you're subject to the massive amount of FUD in advertising (which IMO is where most of the real evil resides), and you're often tempted into watching just another half hour, just another half hour, just another half hour.
When people say "watching TV" they're typically referring to "watching network TV" Anything else is just video entertainment... but that's another argument altogether.
Basically when watching it "live" as you say then you're molding your life around the TV show, as opposed to putting the TV show where it best fits into your life. It fundamentally changes the role TV plays in your life reguardless of what shows you're watching.
Re:OMG! BAN TV! (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a growing trend of sitting the child in the front of a childrens channel then forgetting about them.. the TV becomes the babysitter. That's the key to the problem - the parent isn't interacting with the child.. in fact its only social contact is through wierd blokes in brightly coloured bird costumes who sing a lot..
Re:OMG! BAN TV! (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the fact that the TV is something that Autistic individuals can relate to IS NOT EVEN CLOSE to the same as the TV being responsible for it! Try living with someone who's Autistic, you'd be amazed at the variance in attitude between "TV Time" and "life."
The problem is with the visual (over)stimulation (Score:5, Interesting)
Go watch a classic episode of I Love Lucy or The Honeymooner's or The Twilight Zone. It's not uncommon for one camera shot to last four minutes. And at that point in time (I'm thinking 1960s and earlier) it was common to listen to dramas on the radio -- Green Lantern, Lone Ranger, The Strangler, etc. -- so the listener was actively involved in building mental imagery. Kids who have been raised on a steady diet of modern tv don't have the patience for old-fashioned TV or stories (or, for that matter, conversations requiring well-developed listening skills)... it's too "boring." (IMO, their brains aren't well adapted to concentrate for that period of time and they find it tiring and/or difficult.)
Re:OMG! BAN TV! (Score:5, Funny)
In Europe, it's on every night. They name it different things in different countries. Try "Colpo Grosso" in Italy, "Tutti Frutti" in Germany, etc.
In America, it's only on for about two seconds, during a "football" game, to commemorate hundreds of hours of pending Congressional outrage.
What about the internet (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What about the internet (Score:5, Funny)
Other way around. Being dysfunctional in the first place causes increased MySpace and YouTube use.
And, uh, I guess it also causes Slashdot posts such as this one.
Reverse correlation? (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, and exactly what debate is there about autism? I think I missed something here.
Re:Reverse correlation? (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's how I see it:
ADD started out being kinda rare, and only those kids with the obvious behavior problems were diagnosed with ADD; Ritilin seemed effective for them.
Ten or so years later, any kid who tapped their foot during breakfast got a mouthful of Ritilin on their way out the door. EVERYBODY had ADD (and the former behavior issue became known as ADHD).
Now, finally, ADD is more common than brown eyes (in the US anyway), but thankfully kiddy speed (Ritilin) is only generally prescribed for ADHD. That's good; it keeps the high schoolers from chopping it up and snorting it (seen it done by numerous people). ADD is now a disease of convenience; it's actually normal to have ten projects going at once, each of which is 1/3 done. It's also normal to finish one before you move on to the next. Neither behaviors are affected by Ritilin at all, trust me. But if you need an excuse for your bad grades, your kid's bad grades, your excessive passion and/or ambition for anything, by all means, get yourself some ADD.
Ten years ago, Autistic kids were incredibly rare. They were almost like Albino's - that rare. They were kids who were horribly sensitive to noise (you talking quietly sounds like a scream); they were generally mute; very emotionally sensitive; and in many cases, very gifted & talented (my mom's doctor's kid is REALLY Autistic... despite sensitivity to sound, he can play the piano like George Gershwin, no shit).
Today, if you seem shy on some days, you are Autistic. Now I can't really see excessive TV under (or over) the age of 3 resulting in shyness (I'm actually lying).
You see, TV doesn't cause Autism, medical professionals constitute Autism with the severity of the symptoms they choose to interpret as Autism. If you're 3, and you're ever so mildly reluctant to smile at the doc that day, and loud noise makes you cry (still makes me cry & I'm 24), you're probably running the word Autism through his brain, if not asking for a "referral to a specialist" (and hence a statistic as an Autistic case). I mean, I'm sure it's a little more involved, but that's the impression that I get at least.
I mean Cornell University, okay, I suppose. This kind of news IMMEDIATELY makes me suspicious of the drug companies. It's like they want everyone to expect their kid to become autistic in five years when their new Autism pez comes out. But, Cornell ain't a drug company, right, so I dunno...
Re:Reverse correlation? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm allergic to (well, not really allergic, but hypersensitive) sugar and various related sweeteners like glucose etc. Before this was known I couldn't handle any criticism, loud noises etc etc. Used to cry a lot (the real heavy tantrums) and everything. I guess I could've been diagnosed with a million mental disorders, however luckily my parents found out it was an oversensitivity towards sugars and a type of foodcoloring.
Now I'm perfectly fine. No moodswings anymore etc. Still nuts as hell though, but who defined "normal" anyway.
There are more and more artificial stuff (artificial aroma's, food colorings, added sweeteners, preservatives etc. etc.) mixed with the things we eat, and it's shown that allergies or hypersensitivities towards these ingredients can cause all kinds of weird stuff with someone's personality, without causing real visible allergic reactions.
Diagnosing these types of allergies is also difficult because stopping to eat these types of foods doesn't usually have an immediate effect. It's not an on/off switch, but the effects are reduced gradually so it can be very difficult to quickly see wether or not someone is allergic (opposed to the acute reactions testable by those armscratch tests).
Most likely though it's a mix of factors.... a bit of television, a bit of allergies, and a bit of overactivity of the doctors
Re:Reverse correlation? (Score:4, Informative)
Sounds like perhaps you don't have ADD if the drugs didn't work for you. Your sole experience is not scientific proof. I know plenty of people that are helped by the medication (I don't know any kids, just adults). And besides, the meds aren't going to finish your work for you, they're going to help with the mental block that's preventing you from doing so.
Re:Reverse correlation? (Score:4, Informative)
Each of these manifests itself differently. Having an Autism Spectrum Disorder implies some level of impairment in social functioning, but where you are on the spectrum indicates how much desire you have to engage in social interactions at all.
I think the greater knowledge of the spectrum disorders in the medical community has led to the greater incidence of diagnosis. It may also be the case that the incidence of autism is increasing, though I would be surprised if TV was the cause. Simon Baron Cohen [autismresearchcentre.com] (he's Sascha's cousin) has theorized that Autism represents an extremely systematizing mind, and that kind of mind (in my experience) tends to shy away from the disordered chaos of TV and towards systems and obsessions (trains, cars, computers, etc.)
If a diagnosis is provided with the intent of helping the child learn how to cope with social situations better, I don't see anything wrong with it. While I am opposed to the search for a "cure" for a spectrum disorder that also includes a number of functioning, intelligent, and unique individuals, I feel that social interaction strategies can be learned and applied to help children with autism learn to communicate and function better. If our goal is to help each child (or adult) to learn how to accomplish the things they want to do, then I don't see how greater awareness is a problem, even if there is some amount of bandwagoning that goes on.
Re:Reverse correlation? (Score:5, Informative)
I, myself, am known to panic under stress, resulting in somewhat manic-depressive behaviour (I get intensely absorbed in whatever it is I am doing, or I show signs of depression) combined with tension problems. People are trying to see if the label fits me as we speak.
But whenever I go to the library to get information on Autism, I recognize so little about myself there. For instance, I am not rigid at all; I dislike talking about exact topics; I have a vivid imagination.
There may well be an interesting theoretical causality, but it doesn't help me much. I haven't had any advice or help whatsoever from the shrinks -- only tests, tests, tests, and more to come (it takes a very long time to check for autism) -- and the books on the subject don't help me manage myself.
Instead, I have learned a lot from reading about bipolar II, and managed, with much effort, to stabilize my mood so that I can think clearly again.
I insisted on intake that I learned about the underlying cause of my problems, so that I could learn to manage them, so you may say that I have caused my own problem. What frustrates me more, however, is that I have also had to solve it myself with so little help from the experts.
Argh. (Score:5, Funny)
How disappointing!
Say it with me... (Score:5, Insightful)
CORRELATION DOES NOT EQUAL CAUSATION!
CORRELATION DOES NOT EQUAL CAUSATION!
CORRELATION DOES NOT EQUAL CAUSATION!
Now stop reporting on every correlation between disease X and social variable Y as though it were somehow equivalent to a randomized double-blind study on the effects of Y on X. Thank you.
Re:Say it with me... (Score:4, Funny)
Umbrellas cause autism (Score:4, Insightful)
I think that the study itself really drives this point home. If you read the actual paper (PDF file) [cornell.edu] a major part of their case is:
1) When the weather is lousy, children watch more television
2) Places with a lot of rain and snow have more autistic children
I'd imagine that when the weather is bad, children also are more likely to use umbrellas. Therefore, by their logic, umbrellas cause autism.
Re:Say it with me... (Score:4, Informative)
And here is another one I want everyone to repeat:
'MIGHT' DOES NOT EQUAL 'DOES'!
'MIGHT' DOES NOT EQUAL 'DOES'!
'MIGHT' DOES NOT EQUAL 'DOES'!
The title of this article is "TV Really Might Cause Autism". Who the hell is reporting that it is the cause? Who is claiming that this statistically significant relationship is equal to a 'randomized double-blind study'? And how exactly do you propose one do a 'randomized double-blind study' on autism anyways? The problem isn't that studies like this that present statistical relationships make the news, it is that people for some reason fail to read words like "might", "may", or "possibly" and instead read a certainity which no one claimed existed.
Re:Say it with me... (Score:5, Insightful)
"CORRELATION DOES NOT EQUAL CAUSATION!"
Correlation may show signs that they are related. It may even show extremely strong, almost irrefutable signs. But it never proves it. Everyone that screams this saying knows this.
If you really think higher correlation means causation, take a look at venganza.org again. The correlation between the lack of pirates and global warming is approaching 'certainty'. It's obvious to anyone with half a brain that the lack of pirates does not cause global warming. But the correlation is extremely strong.
Of course it sometimes happens that there is causation that is causing the correlation. That's just common sense, too. But it's a logical fallacy to believe that correlation means causation.
Some light reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_implies_
And BTW, the study could EASILY be backwards. Maybe autistic children make parents move to towns with cable. It's just as likely, from the given facts.
I've read Hume too, but ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, when I was a stereotypical angry young philosophy student, I thought it would be fun to make my own fake warning labels to put on my cigarette packs. So, who did I turn to? Hume, of course.
So, my cigarette packs had a big warning: "Correlation Does Not Imply Causation" on them. I thought it was a good joke, by philosophy joke standards anyway.
Now, I knew perfectly well that in this case even though it did not imply it, it was in fact true. Of course cigarretes caused cancer. In many cases correlation is, um, correlated with causation. But I was 18 so I didn't care; I thought it was funny.
What a joke.
So, the point is: correlation is a start. If there is a correlation, you should look for ways to establish whether causation exists or not.
Now, you usually cannot do real proper experiments on humans with smoking (starting with a large random set of non-smokers, making half of them smoke their entire lives, and seeing how many of each group died of cancer). The ethics boards at the university wouldn't approve
So, do you just give up and say "thank you for smoking" or "well, we'll never prove anything according to David Hume then". No, you don't. There are statistical tools like factor analysis which let people smarter than me figure out how much of A is (probably) caused by B, etc.
Anyway, I have a 2 year old son now, and stuff I thought was funny at 18 is certainly not funny anymore over a decade later. I quit smoking. I certainly wouldn't give my son a cigarette, ever.
However, if there is a strong correlation between TV and autism, I have to wonder whether I am in effect doing something similar. What if further anaylsis proves (as much as you can prove anything) that it is indeed a cause?
What would I have done??
[yeah, yeah, there's a mountain of evidence in one of the cases vs. one study in another
"Correlation Does Not Imply Causation" does not mean act insanely. You have only ever seen gravity by correlation, but you still believe in it. (Yes you do. Wipe that smirk off your face.)
Now, coincidentally, I also cancelled cable TV after reading Gregg Easterbrook's original Slate article. Obligatory blog whoring: I blogged about it at http://peterarmstrong.com/articles/2006/10/08/rag
Do I think there is conclusive, Hume-would-be-proud proof that TV causes autism. No.
Do I think that TV is good for young children?
Would I give my 2 year old son a cigarette?
In this case, it is guaranteed causation-less. (Score:4, Informative)
Correlation is need to proove causation. But by itself alone it doesn't implie it. Other finding are necessary like models that explains WHY such causality should be expected (What's the biochemistry involved ?). Or see Koch's postulate [wikipedia.org] : expremients that proove that by adding/removing the candidate cause ou can somewhat control the effect.
But on the other hand some mecanism is partially known. Also there are finding pointing to the fact that autism is associated and may be caused by some abnormal brain wiring that already happen in utero, thus debunking the old "it's-the-mother's-relationship-fault" supposed cause. Also if it start that early in the developpement, later exposure to the TV is less likely to be the main causing factor.
And in this case I think it's clearly a case of pure correlation that depend on an additionnal common cause. From what I've understood during my studies (got a degree in medecine) and what I've observed (one of my brothers has autism) : one of the caracteristics of an autist is being much less capable to anticipate or to cope with complex not easily predicted event. In this case the TV is reassuringly predictible : once turned it just plays the show. No complex social interraction required. And also, if wired to a VCR or DVD player, the TV can always play that specific shows that the autist knows and can correctly anticipate, etc...
TV isn't a cause *of* autism. But, the cognitive mecanism that are specific of autism, also happen to find the TV very reassuring.
the page quote (Score:4, Funny)
"Toddlers are the stormtroopers of the Lord of Entropy."
I guess not anymore, huh?
A correlation shows no cause (Score:5, Insightful)
I call bullshit.
That is, it is entirely possible (and plausible) that a correlation exists. However I'd interpret it in the reverse way. That is, the study shows just that children born with autism are more likely to spend time watching TV (knowing the features of autism, this is entirely possible).
Moreover, the existence of a correlation does not show necessarily a cause-effect relationship. Do you remember Lisa Simpson showing Homer a rock that protected from tigers?
This kind of papers are what my collegues call "scientific pornography" -papers thrown up just to stir up controversy, but based on very fragile assumptions and with a few data inflated as much as possible. Quite a common occurrence, sadly, these days.
Re:A correlation shows no cause (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A correlation shows no cause (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's see... (Score:5, Insightful)
How about the increased understanding of and accurate diagnosis of autism and autism-related disorders around that time?
How about the repetitive nature of television programming, especially kids shows, appealing to autistics as a source of consistency and comfort?
How about the fact that the places getting cable were also the places getting elevated concentrations of geeks, who seem to have genetic quirks that have this tendancy to result in autism-like disorders? Could that POSSIBLY have ANYTHING to do with a rise in autism in Washington, _Oregon_, and *CALIFORNIA*?
Re:Let's see... (Score:4, Interesting)
> cable makes doctors more proficient.
Of course, cable TV does not cause doctors to become more proficient. But it is not unlikely that
the two are correlated, the link being personal wealth. As personal wealth increases, a family is
more likely to have cable TV, and it is more likely to have access to better doctors. It is quite
possible that this cause explains the data. More research on the matter would be good, of course.
There is not enough data to clearly see cause and effect here.
Chris Mattern
Bhutan (Score:5, Interesting)
Autism spectrum disorder (Score:5, Insightful)
Now for some of the usual comments people tend to spew out:
Correlation is not causation
This is true - but correlation indicates that there MAY BE a causation. Thus, when things are strongly correlated and there are other reasons to suspect a causal connection, it is well worth researching further.
Increased awareness
Perhaps 'increased awareness' of autism means that we discover more cases that were not previously recognised? Perhaps, but I don't think it is very likely. Full-blown autism is not something you overlook. It is a serious disorder that in most cases means lifelong disability, and it is unlike any other psychiatric disorder. The increased awareness, I suspect, mostly means that now we spot more of the milder cases, but it is not my impression that this is what this research is about.
So why is it that people on this list are hostile to the idea that maybe TV can contribute to the emergence of autism? My guess is that this is because people on the list tend to be heavy consumers of passive entertainment, like TV and computer games; you don't want to hear that it may be bad for you.
If you have read the article I referred to above, you will know that autism probably has a lot to do with the development of 'mirror neurons' in the brain; a neural system that makes us able to imitate what other people do. Like all neural systems, the mirror neurons need to be trained, and TV is probably not a very good role model for that, at least not if you are already weak in this area. So it is actually quite reasonable to suspect that watching too much TV at an early age may contribute to the development of autism.
At least we know what its NOT caused by... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.badscience.net/?p=249 [badscience.net]
Let's just ban the word Austism (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want a controlled study, here it is: I have two children, by the same wife. One is perfectly normal. The other is autistic. I suspected there was something wrong with the Autistic one by the time he was nine months old. (Most babies love to be held. This one was completely hyper, and would squirm out of everyone's arms as soon as he was physically capable of it. He rarely slept. He walked early, but displayed odd mannerisms. While many toddlers are fascinated by television, he manifested no interest in watching it at that age at all.) But he was not diagnosed until he was three, because there was very little diagnostic criteria to go one. Babies really don't do much other than cry, eat, sleep and poop.
They both watched plenty of TV by the time they were three. Just like I did in the sixties. They are 10 and 11 now. I taught the eldest to read the usual way, and he is a voracious reader. He still loves TV. And video games. And fart jokes, and every other thing a normal eleven year old loves. He's still not autistic. The youngest, the Autistic one, would rarely sit still for a story. He liked to flip through books, but didn't want to be read to. He can read now, though. Know why? I turned the English subtitles on whenever he watched his favorite DVD's.
He learned to read watching television.
This study is bunk. It's not a theory. It's more like the plot to Halloween III.
A physician's view: this is a stunningly bad paper (Score:5, Insightful)
As a pediatrician trained in child development (and the parent of an autistic teenager), I've got a strong interest and background in this, and I can tell you quite plainly that the paper is crap.
This is a spectacularly good example of really stupid statistical games. I only skimmed it (Acrobat Reader blew up on me as I tried to save it, and I'll get another copy later), but these people did the following amazing things:
1. Accept as fact that autism itself is increasing (as opposed to the diagnosis of autism). This is possible, but contentious and somewhat controversial. I'll spare you the full story, but the general opinion is that while the disorder is more common than it once was, changes in diagnosis (and benefits for diagnosis) make it hard to do more than guess at the actual rate of increase.
2. Consider de novo a hypothesis "that early childhood television watching is an important trigger for the onset of autism." They do note that nobody else has bothered to consider this, but don't spend much time wondering why. Apparently, they're special. Perhaps because nobody has measured this in a useful manner? They do admit this, but they find a solution!
3. Because there are no good numbers for early television watching, they use precipitation as a proxy for television watching. Apparently, if it rains, you're likely inside with the tube on. They do show a strong positive correlation between rainfall and autism. Yep, that's right - rain causes autism.
4. But wait - it can't be the rain, it has to be the television! That's what we started trying to prove, anyway, so it's important to stay focused. They try it another way: they consider the availability of cable. They show that autism correlates with the availability of cable. No, really, it does. Of course, diagnosis of a LOT of chronic developmental syndromes increases with affluence, because of the increased availability of medical care and the reduction in "grab-bag" diagnoses like "mental retardation". But still, it must be the cable.
5. Having neatly done all the "proof" they require, they then proceed to tear the numbers apart and "prove" that 40% of autism in California is triggered by early television watching, while only 17% is triggered in PA. Why, we don't know, but it appears that rain, or cable, or maybe just TV is more powerful in CA than in PA. Or something like that.
I don't have time for a complete fisking right now, but I may do it later. Aside from the basic methodologic errors (confusing correlation with causation, adopting a highly questionable proxy indicator without validating it, and spending almost no time ruling out confounding factors or tainted data), there remain the dozens of smaller tactical problems that should have sidelined this turkey. I assume the peer reviewers, if there are any, were on drugs.
This paper will be a bombshell, all right. I'll use it over and over again as I explain to medical students and colleagues that you don't have to have much in the way of actual brains to write a scientific paper. Or, as I said about another paper in journal club once, "the font is nice, and I like the layout of the tables. It's a shame the actual science is such garbage."
Re:A physician's view: this is a stunningly bad pa (Score:5, Informative)
This is a spectacularly good example of really stupid statistical games.
In actuality, the paper is a good example of the way in which social research can take advantage of natural experiments.
I only skimmed it...
Then why write with such unwarranted authority and in such certain terms about its contents and conclusions?
Aside from the basic methodologic errors (confusing correlation with causation, adopting a highly questionable proxy indicator without validating it, and spending almost no time ruling out confounding factors or tainted data), there remain the dozens of smaller tactical problems...
They made none of the errors you list. I would like to think you might have realized this had you bothered (as I did) to actually read the paper, but based on the evidence of your post, I would be reckless to assume that.
Does TV cause autism? I doubt it. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Ahem... One tiny, tiny tiny problem... (Score:4, Insightful)
A solid background in statistics is required to launch a bombshell like this. It is likely that these authors have that background.
Furthermore, economists (which one of the authors would seem to be based on his affiliation) are well trained in methods of robustly detecting effects in non-experimental data (such as this); whereas medical researchers are typically more involved with experimental data. Experimental data is much easier to deal with than non-experimental data. Indeed, one could argue that these sorts of studies are more likely to be carried out properly by economists trained in dealing with this sort of data.
The important aspect of this is that there was a natural experiment carried out where some counties received cable television and others didn't. Provided the counties that received cable television did so for essentially random reasons, this data is the equivalent of a randomised experimental trial. As such, the standard argument that correlation does not prove causation is much weaker. There might well be a third factor at work here, but hold those knee-jerk reactions. One needs to be a good statistician to detect these correlations - medical researchers can work out the reasons later.
Re:Ahem... One tiny, tiny tiny problem... (Score:4, Insightful)
This idea that all one needs to understand is statistics in order to comment on a scientific discipline is incorrect. Analysis of statistics is important, but in order to draw conclusions from them, one really has to understand the field they are being made in. It is a common issue with economists who tend to view the numbers as the be all and end all without understanding where they have come from and what the greater issues at play around the numbers might be.
That's such an idiotic assumption that it essentially destroys the research on its own. Genuine randomness is incredibly important is selecting participants for any sort of psychological experiment, and I can think of a number of reasons off the top of head why there would be a correlation between the availability of cable TV and incidence of autism.For example, increased wealth makes cable TV a viable business to set up, but also allows parents to pay to have autistic children treated resulting an increased number of reported cases. Alternately, cable TV may only be launched in areas with a certain level of technological uptake.
There's also a theory that autism rates increase when technologically minded people start gathering together at workplaces (therefore breeding, therefore passing on (and concentrating) their autistic-related genes). There's another potential explanation for the correlation.
This is certainly not a study that psychologists would credit as being worthwhile, which highlights why people should have some idea why they're talking about before dropping bombshells like this.