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Does watching television trigger autism? (2007)

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Re: Does watching television trigger autism? (2007)

#41

Post by skissane »

danparsonson wrote: post #21
metamuas wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Diagnoses of autism have risen dramatically over the past few decades, from an estimated one in 2500 children thirty years ago to one in 150 today." is one of the first lines of the article. If you are so smart, and only you are so smart, what environmental factor has increased that rapidly?

We're much better at diagnosing it than we used to be.

That’s disputed; another point of view is that “autism” is a label and we’ve increased the scope of that label to cover a lot of things which in the past were either given different labels or no label at all. There are a number of voices in the academic/professional community questioning the great and growing breadth of the “autism” label and the flimsiness of the scientific justification for its expansion (people such as Laurent Mottron, Lynn Waterhouse, Allen Frances)

Re: Does watching television trigger autism? (2007)

#42

Post by sascha_sl »

gryson wrote: post #29
sascha_sl wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All it tells me is that the standard for evidence in economics is much lower than the standard of evidence in medicine or sociology. This paper has some problems that run very deep in established methodology, so while it might be good faith, it's also useless.

What specific problems are you referring to?

The number of assumptions made without good evidence (neither rain nor having a cable subscription is automatically more TV time - especially the presence of cable says nothing about how parents control their childs media diet and is just an indicator of wealth) and the blindness for alternative explainations for these supposed relationships.

They started from a typical armchair hypothesis and then looked for a way to interpret data to fit that hypothesis. That by itself is not remarkable, but the quality of the interpretation is questionable at best and outright malicious as worst.

Re: Does watching television trigger autism? (2007)

#43

Post by Trouble_007 »

metamuas wrote: post #37
Trouble_007 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correlation does not Imply Causation : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_cau... Edit: Add; White Noise : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_noise Pink Noise : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_noise Red (Brownian) Noise : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownian_noise Purple Noise : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_noise Grey Noise : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_noise

If you have the time, please find out what traffic noise is closest to. I tried to find out but couldn't get any further than this wikipedia page[0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadway_noise

search: >'traffic noise effects on people' @DDG: https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q='traffic noise effects on...>

Edit: Add;

Health Effects from Noise : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_from_noise

Re: Does watching television trigger autism? (2007)

#44

Post by taneq »

metamuas wrote: post #2

Proximity to freeways increases autism risk, study finds [0]. Having a mother who lived within 1,000 feet of a freeway while pregnant doubles a child's odds of having autism [1]. Basically, white noise can cause autism. People are screwing up their kids at an exponential rate [2]. [0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20210609042055/https://www.latim... [1]: https://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/news/20101217/fast-lane-t...…

What else correlates with living within 1000 feet of a freeway? Population density? Pollutants in the atmosphere? Proximity to Starbucks? Lower socioeconomic status?

Re: Does watching television trigger autism? (2007)

#45

Post by sascha_sl »

labster wrote: post #35
sascha_sl wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't underestimate noise pollution. It's a very real stressor. Though, what's more likely is that a child with mild ASD is more obviously autistic under stress, which leads to diagnosis earlier.

Don’t underestimate particulate matter and ozone. Kills millions every year. But the same theory could apply, as health-induced stress instead of distraction stress. Or both.

Both seems plausible. I just wanted to note that noise pullution is often overlooked and much more impactful than people assume.

Re: Does watching television trigger autism? (2007)

#46

Post by Rury »

skissane wrote: post #41
danparsonson wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're much better at diagnosing it than we used to be.

That’s disputed; another point of view is that “autism” is a label and we’ve increased the scope of that label to cover a lot of things which in the past were either given different labels or no label at all. There are a number of voices in the academic/professional community questioning the great and growing breadth of the “autism” label and the flimsiness of the scientific justification for its expansion (people su…

This. I think the problem is simply we're over-diagnosing autism. Basically borderline people would've been considered normal in the past, but are now considered autistic. Frankly, the entirety of symptoms involved in diagnosis sounds subject to a person's opinion of what people's behavior should be vs shouldn't be. Since this line is hard for everyone to agree on, we've come up with degrees of autism, like "high functioning" autism such as Asperger's syndrome. I'd argue, it's only when it's obvious (i.e. the person is largely dependent) while having said symptoms, that they're autistic... Just because someone behave's abnormally socially, has peculiar interests, and/or has delayed abilities (unless extreme), isn't sufficient IMO. Additionally, two different doctors may end up giving different diagnoses.

Re: Does watching television trigger autism? (2007)

#47

Post by blowski »

metamuas wrote: post #10
dqpb wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think white noise causes autism?

Basically, humans are pattern seeking creatures, and children exposed to white noise will try to find patterns in white noise, when there are none, thus leading to the brain maladapting to random patterns. My theory, but I couldn't find a good definition of traffic noise being related to white noise or classified in particular, but who knows.

In argument against your theory - a lot of parents use white noise explicitly to help their babies to sleep. From my own personal experience, most of those kids don’t then suffer from autism.

Re: Does watching television trigger autism? (2007)

#48

Post by taneq »

metamuas wrote: post #39
dragonwriter wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think it's joke research Perhaps not consciously, but I take NBER research on causes of autism as seriously as NIH research on causes of recessions.

Well the stock market succeeding depends on people having irrational faith in the stocks like Tesla, despite making most of their money from Bitcoin than selling cars[0], so that isn't really a valid counterfactual point, since market opinions are based on psychological beliefs. [0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20210427112905/https://www.wsj.c...

Maybe I'm missing something here but how does the article you linked support "making most of their money from Bitcoin than selling cars"? It says:

- Revenue of $10.4 billion

- Net income reached $438 million

- sold some of the $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin that it purchased in February, contributing $101 million to the bottom line

- sales of regulatory credits to other auto makers to help them meet emissions mandates, which carry a 100% profit margin, reached $518 million

All this tells us is that they sold some of the bitcoin they bought earlier (a tiny fraction of their total income), they're selling a shedload of cars, and that they're spending a ton of money. Which you'd expect given they're building multiple giant-ass factories at the same time.

I'm no crazy Tesla fan (love some of their tech, hate their 'we own your car' attitude) but you can't argue that they don't usually deliver (let's not talk about FSD :P ).

Re: Does watching television trigger autism? (2007)

#49

Post by sascha_sl »

skissane wrote: post #41
danparsonson wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're much better at diagnosing it than we used to be.

That’s disputed; another point of view is that “autism” is a label and we’ve increased the scope of that label to cover a lot of things which in the past were either given different labels or no label at all. There are a number of voices in the academic/professional community questioning the great and growing breadth of the “autism” label and the flimsiness of the scientific justification for its expansion (people su…

I don't see how both can't be true.

The diagnosis itself has changed a lot (retiring Aspergers, changing it to "ASD") to account for this though, and I'd generally say that having more awareness of how people deviate from neurotpicallity is a good thing.

If you see it purely as a disorder (and thus a bad thing) maybe you have an interest in continued underdiagnosis, but many people now see autism as different, but not strictly worse or better.

Re: Does watching television trigger autism? (2007)

#50

Post by sascha_sl »

Rury wrote: post #46
skissane wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s disputed; another point of view is that “autism” is a label and we’ve increased the scope of that label to cover a lot of things which in the past were either given different labels or no label at all. There are a number of voices in the academic/professional community questioning the great and growing breadth of the “autism” label and the flimsiness of the scientific justification for its expansion (people su…

This. I think the problem is simply we're over-diagnosing autism. Basically borderline people would've been considered normal in the past, but are now considered autistic. Frankly, the entirety of symptoms involved in diagnosis sounds subject to a person's opinion of what people's behavior should be vs shouldn't be. Since this line is hard for everyone to agree on, we've come up with degrees of autism, like "high fun…

Autism (and ASD) should really not be seen as this essentialist "yes or no".

There are degrees to which people, considered autistic or not by your favorite arbitrary standard, exhibit autistic traits. And those traits are not strictly inherently better or worse than neurotypical traits.

The standard for consideration as disorder should be the same as with most psychiatric disorders: Not mere presence, but causing issues that need support.

But at the same time, the people that are doing fine with autistic traits are no less autistic.

(Also, Asperger's has ceased existing a while ago)

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