Some people say Vaccines cause Autism, but while I think this could be a factor I think the main change in how we treat children that's caused an explosion in the disorder is that really young children are being exposed to more two dimensional moving images than ever before.
Recent research has proven that serious problems, including the sorts of problems associated with Autism, are found more in 10 year olds if they watched more television than average when at the age of 2.
In 2006 Prof. Michael Waldman of Cornell University did a study very strongly indicating that exposure to Television under the age of three greatly increases the chances a child will be diagnosed with Autism.
"If early childhood television watching is a trigger for autism, then one would expect the percentage of households in a community or county with a susbscription to cable television to be correlated with the autism rate in that community or county. We investigate this issue using autism and corresponding cable rates broken down by geographic area in California and Pennsylvania for children born between 1972 and 1989 and show that indeed cable subscription rates are positively correlated with autism rates. Further, this is true even after one controls for the general increase in autism rates during the time period of the analysis. That is, our finding of a positive and statistically significant correlation between cable subscription rates and autism rates is not due to the fact that both cable subscription rates and autism rates both grew during the time period studied. Rather, the correlation is driven by the fact that autism grew faster, on average, in those counties in which cable subscription rates grew faster." -DOES TELEVISION CAUSE AUTISM?
I really think the Waldmann study was an excellent piece of work, and I couldn't stand how Media Outlets attacked it using arguments that were nothing more than mindless appeals to statistical ignorance.
Given this I find it quite interesting that important new data has come in supporting the general idea that watching Television is harmful for young children, and most importantly that the negative effects persist for years afterward.
Watching TV at Age 2 Linked to a Host of Problems at 10
Too much TV in childhood might have negative ramifications later in life, a new study finds.
The results show the amount of time spent in front of the tube at 2 years of age is linked with academic, social and health problems at age 10. For instance, too much TV is associated with less engagement in classroom activities, less exercise on weekends, and a higher chance of being picked on by classmates in the fourth grade.
The findings held true even after the researchers accounted for many factors that could have influenced the results, including: the child's gender, sleep schedule, temperament problems, mother's education, number of parents in the household, and even how much TV the children watched when they were in fourth grade.
Why?
Early TV-viewing might have long-term influences, because it happens at a time when both the brain and lifestyle habits are still developing, according to study researcher Linda S. Pagani, a researcher at Universite de Montreal in Canada.
"Television is a passive intellectual activity, television is a passive physical activity," Pagani told LiveScience, "And when it occurs early on, during the time that brain expansion is going on, during the time when lifestyle habits and preferences are talking place - they're kind of crystallizing - it can have extremely negative long-term effects."
Original Article