Dear Professor Waldman, re: TV and autism
October 19, 2006 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
I emailed Professor Michael Waldman concerning his research study on TV as a cause of autism; he wrote back about his use of statistical techniques and about wanting to present the results of his research as soon as he might out of ethical concerns. Below is part of an email that I then sent back to him.
My experience with autism is purely personal, being that of a mother; as an academic, I understand your wish to make the contents of your research study known much more quickly than is the case when one publishes in a peer-reviewed journal.
I am not alone among parents in finding the hypothesis that television might be a “trigger” for autism quite puzzling. My own son was born with autism—he was autistic well before he ever caught sight of a television. I would also note that I do not consider him to be “sick” with autism. While autism is a neurodevelopmental disability, my husband and I are not the only parents who, while doing everything we can to ensure our children’s potential, see our children as born “different” in their neurological wiring. Different, and very, very special. Autism certainly need not be a “devastating tragedy” for a family and I have tried to convey this on my Autismland blog.
I am concerned that your study, with its link between autism and TV, underscores the perception that autism is something to be avoided at all costs; that is is something that parents ought to fear and worry about their child “getting.” While life raising an autistic child is not easy—-my husband and I have given up academic positions and more to provide our son with the best education and services—it need not be terrible and awful. In fact, life with Charlie is always rich and very good, in ways that I could never have imagined had I not known my son.
I would much like to know if, as part of your research and/or perhaps the genesis for your research, you observed any autistic children? After seven years as the mother of an autistic son, I have too often learned that the only way to be able to understand autism is to have had regular, direct, and daily interactions with an autistic child. While I understand that such might be beyond the scope of your research, I do not think that any study about autism can be given full credence without noting such direct experience.
Sincerely,
Kristina Chew, Ph.D.
Can you give me the Professor’s email? I’d love to email him myself with my own perspective.
Cynthia
Professor Waldman has managed what we all thought was impossible: to unite a vast majority of the autism community. Regardless of our views on what triggered ASD in our individual children, we are all haqving a good belly laugh at this hypothesis.
Underline “hypothesis”!
Good job! Well said. We have to laugh at this “professor” — or we’d cry. What a terribly presumptious conclusion for a so-called researcher to pursue.
Thanks so much for contacting him Kristina! I loved your query as to whether he actually observed any autistic children (we know that they observed “at risk” children…) & that you set him straight as to whether or not our kids are “sick”. Come on out of the ivory tower, Dr. Waldman, & see the “results” of your work!
Silly Professor Waldman. Imagine thinking that TV causes autism, and ‘proving’ it by linking TV watching to rates of precipitation. Talk about being misguided.
Everyone knows that Tinky Winky is the real cause of autism…
And here I thought it was Barney!
Maybe from here on out, Waldman could be referred to simply as Rainman.
(hope this humor is not in bad taste)
It’s not Barney, or Tinky Winky. It’s Little Bear.
Megan’s first intelligible sentences were word-for-word Little Bear episodes.
Elmo……….
I would’ve thought that Wade would like this theory. It’s environmental, after all. He likes the vaccine theory (many ingredients) — vaccines can supposedly trigger autism long after birth. He likes Dan Olmstead’s chemist dads theory. I imagine he’s sympathetic to the environmental pollution theory. I know why Wade doesn’t like the old dads theory — its mechanism is a genetic mutation. But why not TV?
I will let Wade speak for himself, of course……. I have been thinking that Prof. Waldman’s TV/autism hypothesis speaks for itself, or does not.
Hmmm, this Professor Waldman has been around far too long! Even Mary Shelley wrote about him. Isn’t he the crank whose lectures inspired Victor Frankenstein to conduct his ill-conceived experiments with human nature?
Incidentally, as my son Martyn’s first words were “Thomas OO OO, Percy Peep”, at the age of four years old, I reckon that Thomas the Tank Engine is the true cause of Autism.
and all this time i was blaming it on my mother in law!
I have experience working with Autism. When we are so far from understanding any causal relationship,I would never assume to be so arrogant.I think Dr.Waldman is simply offering this up as a possibility to consider.
Professor Michael Waldman has an autistic son. His son was diagnosised at two and a half. Professor Michael Waldman is looking for answers just like all parents of autistic children. Raising a red flag on children watching television is far from a bad thing. All children should watch a limited amount of tv. I have been an ABA therapist for 12 years. One of the first things I tell parents is to limit the amount of time in front of the tv. If a child is watching tv, they are not being social, playing or actively using their brain.
Thanks, Rene—very good point. I have also written about Prof. Waldman’s view in this post.
I agree that too much television can be a bad thing, like Rene and Professor Waldman note, but I’m wondering how many of your children or you model some of the behaviors you see on television? That television has become a useful learning tool for modeling appropriate behaviors and language? Because, I’d say that my son’s television watching has actually helped him navigate appropriate social situations. He says “Hello,” “Good-bye,” and “How do you do?” Of course, it’s a little formal for the playground but it’s a start.
Of course, there’s pitfalls: like when my son was trying to jump off the desks to catch the yarn hanging from the ceiling so that he could swing like Spiderman.
Like everything else, I think television in moderation is perfectly fine and can be a very helpful learning tool. (And, if it keeps us both from a meltdown, it’s all good.) I just don’t think it’s all or nothing.
Agreed about TV—certainly a way for Charlie to hear language and see things beyond his daily experience. Charlie watches almost no TV—the one thing he shows some interest in is ESPN, especially with his dad. And a little Jeopardy because his grandparents always have that on.
What has puzzled me about Prof. Waldman’s theory is that he seems to have based it most of all on his own experience with his son—as a personal account of the change of his own son, it is interesting to hear, but I can’t see how he go from there to a theory of autism causation!
I ran into this blog when I was looking up information on the topic of autism and television, because I was wondering about the same connection myself before I ever heard of Dr. Waldman.
I understand the point of view of the parents who say that their child was autistic from birth before s/he ever saw a television. I don’t think it’s as simplistic as “TV causes autism,” but could it be that TV is an exacerbating factor in a child predisposed to ASDs?
Does anyone know of any kind of study done with people who are basically tv-free? Other countries? The Amish? What are their rates of autism compared with the U.S.?
I was brought to this dialog on Waldman’s paper by a Google search. Though the last post is almost a year old, its just about the latest response to Waldman’s paper.
I was amazed at the degree to which Ms Chew misrepresents Waldman’s work in order to discredit it. She says,
“What has puzzled me about Prof. Waldman’s theory is that he seems to have based it most of all on his own experience with his son—as a personal account of the change of his own son, it is interesting to hear, but I can’t see how he go from there to a theory of autism causation!”
Um… no. Did you read the paper? Yes he was motivated by his son’s autism, but that is not the evidence presented in the paper. He uses empirical evidence from at least three sources to establish a link – precipitation as instrumental variable for TV watching, cable TV adoption and the Amish experience. While none of these three studies would be very convincing by itself, the combination is quite compelling. Second, nowhere does Waldman claim that he has definitely identified something causal. The link certainly suggests causality, but his main point is that this deserves further study.
Perhaps you should actually read the paper before trashing it. Here’s a link…
http://www.johnson.cornell.edu/faculty/profiles/Waldman/AUTISM-WALDMAN-NICHOLSON-ADILOV.pdf
@Joseph Guse,
I have not reviewed Prof. Waldman’s paper recently (I read it when he posted it on the internet and also exchanged some emails with him). There are a number of posts here about the paper. Thank you for commenting.
As a side note – I know people who did not even own TV’s when their child developed autism. There are members of the orthodox jewish community who eschew TV and pop media, including movies – and autism seems to be as prevalent as it is in the general populace.
We didn’t get a TV until I was 5. My dad had to teach me how to discern the foreground (people) from the background (other stuff). It was a black and white TV. I rarely watched TV and watch it even more rarely now. Same for videos, movies, and anything else that makes me feel woozy. What I did instead of watching TV was read read read read. Hyperlexia, years before we ever had a TV.
“The link certainly suggests causality”
———————
Does it?
I’ve read the paper (non peer-reviewed direct to the press release), and my opinion is that while the hypothesis may have had some appeal, the analysis is limited by selective inclusion/exclusion of data and is based on cobbling different preexisting data sets together without a direct test. Based on the parameters, one might suggest receiving the cable bill is the trigger for autism.
My husband, who also analyzes data as part of his professional bread and butter, read it, and said he thought maybe the real goal is to test the critical analysis skills of the press, ala Sokol.
Excerpt: p. 40–”Because we do not provide a direct test of the effects of televison watching on autism, we do not consider our results to be definitive evidence in favor of the television viewing as trigger hypothesis…”
They also noted (twice) that autism does not cause precipitation.
It is not “trashing” a preprint to suggest that some of the variables make assumptions that may not bear up under direct test. FWIW, my opinion is subject to change should they present more convincing data of that nature–documenting that the children actually were watching TV or that some other variable related to the family members actually watching TV would be a good start.
(For a real thrashing, see some of the other commentary out there on the web).
@Regan,
I think your husband may be on to something—–I think Prof. Waldman’s research was specifically about his son and a very few other children?
Kristina,
I don’t know the personal motivations behind this report or anyone’s personal background–it just seems in my opinion that as it stands there are a lot of ifs statistically massaged and some funky data (Oregon’s broader criteria for autism category is not the same as California and Washington as noted by Jim Laidler in Pediatrics/not cited in this paper; a sidebar that speculates that Dan Olmsted’s observations on the Amish serves as some kind of child count parameter, when perhaps the Orthodox or Hassidic Jewish communities, as someone noted, might serve as a more appropriate control for the hypothesis with more accurate counts).
On p.43.
“For example, one could monitor the viewing habits of a large number of children from the ages of zero to three and see whether the children who are eventually diagnosed with autism on average watched more television before the age of three. The finding that those diagnosed with autism had indeed watched more television would be subject to the criticism that maybe those prone to autism are more drawn to television viewing”
That is a reasonable study that with proper controls could be done anywhere and would be a much straighter line from A to B. It could be the case that this was in aid of a grant proposal for such. I might suggest that these guys get a professional epidemiologist or public health specialist with autism experience involved to set up such an study should they obtain a grant.
Just my opinion.
I believe that there is most definitely some link between autism and television. The paper’s authors suggest it could be a TRIGGER, and I think this is an accurate description.
My autistic son watched many Baby Einstein videos as a toddler. There are some of these videos (as well as Brainy Baby, etc.) that include animated sequences that would appear to affect epileptic children, as well (flashing, moving objects, etc.) My son’s fascination with these, I fear, acted as a catalyst, a trigger, if you will, into autism.
Is this the only cause? Probably not. It could very well be vaccines PLUS television PLUS other environmental factors.
But I think to totally dismiss television as a possible trigger is irresponsible, just as it would be irresponsible to say it is the ONLY cause.
I think Prof. Waldman’s research was specifically about his son and a very few other children?
It was large data sets from different states. It was the indirectness and assumptions made that made this particular manuscript as it stands less than compelling.
Perhaps they will do the direct studies that they discuss in the manuscript and better make their case…or not (a negative or null result is also a possibility).
I’ve worked with autism and seen normal nieces and nephews (good eye contact, reacting to stimuli, etc.) get their vaccines, run a fever and “become” autistic. I’m a licensed psychologist with video tape of the children before their vaccines and after. It is heartbreaking. As for this research study which shows a statistical relationship between rain, damp weather and autism….it could also be the temperature in the trucks that transport the vaccines. There are so many variables. As the government says, it may not be the vaccines but some other factor which effects the vaccines or the person receiving the vaccine. There are lots of hormones and antiobiotics in milk, could the combination of those with the vaccines be one of the factors? Of course, but so could a lot of other factors. I’m praying for an answer to this question.
There do seem to be connections, and perhaps we might keep asking ourselves why we keep seeking such……….