Toddlers who have more than 14 hours per week of screen time have nearly twice the odds of having a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder when they are 12 years old, a research letter in JAMA Psychiatry has found.
Ping-I. Lin, M.D., Ph.D., of St. Louis University, and colleagues examined data amassed from parents of 5,107 children in the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, a study examining how children's social, economic, and cultural environments affect their wellbeing over the life course. The researchers defined early childhood screen time as the weekly number of hours of exposure to television, videos, or other internet-based programs at 2 years of age.
A total of 145 children had a parent-reported diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder at 12 years. Children who had more than 14 hours of weekly screen time when they were two years old had 1.79 times the odds of having a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder when they were 12 years old than those who had less than 14 hours of weekly screen time. Children were more likely to have more than 14 hours of screen time when they were 2 years old if they were boys, their mothers had less than 13 years of education or less, or they lived in households with a family income of $60,000 or less.
“Although our findings suggest that the association between screen time and ASD risk is not causal, there are still important clinical and policy implications,” the researchers wrote. “Screen time can be a useful marker for identifying families needing additional support. Interventions should address underlying socioeconomic factors, providing resources to reduce adverse health impacts of screen time.”
For related information, see the Psychiatric News Alert “Early Childhood Tablet Use Linked to Angry Outbursts.”
(Image: Getty Images/iStock/dusanpetkovic)
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