Japanese Study Shows ‘Significant Association’ Between Screen Time and Autism in Boys

Researchers have found that having children at home is linked to improved mental health for their parents amid COVID-19 pandemic measures. (Evgeny Atamanenko/Shutterstock)

Research conducted by the University of Yamanashi in Japan indicates a “significant association” between longer screentime for boys at one year of age and being diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) when they are three years old. The research team, led by Megumi Kushima encouraged a review of the health effects of screen time on infants and to control “excessive” screen time.

The research examined 84,030 children born between January 2011 and March 2014 and examined the children’s screentime at one year of age and a diagnosis for ASD at three years of age.

The prevalence of children diagnosed with ASD at three years of age was 392 per 100,000 at around 0.4 percent, with boys found to be three times more likely to be diagnosed with ASD than were girls, with no significant association for girls.

An increase in screentime also correlated with a greater odds of being diagnosed with ASD, with a ratio of 1.38 for children exposed to screentime of less than one hour, 2.16 for screentime for less than 2 hours and 3.02 for screentime of four hours or more.

“Among boys, longer screen time at one year of age was significantly associated with autism spectrum disorder at three years of age,” the authors wrote.

“With the rapid increase in device usage, it is necessary to review the health effects of screen time on infants and to control excessive screen time.”

However, all the findings so far only indicate a correlation, with only causational studies definitively able to show if screentime is really a factor in children being diagnosed with ASD.

Andrew Whitehouse, professor of Autism Research from the Telethon Kids Institute in Australia denied that the findings are significant.

“Not very [significant],” Whitehouse said on Sunrise on Feb. 2.

“Really, it is really important that we put these kinds of findings in context. This association doesn’t equal causation here.”

“It could actually be caused by any number of factors, and what the study very clearly does not show is a causal link between early screen time and a later diagnosis of autism.”

“The bottom line here is that, is having your child in front of the screen at one year of age for four hours a day, is that too much?”

“Yeah, it is absolutely too much. But will it cause autism? No.”

However other studies have supported the findings of the University of Yamanashi, and all have called for additional research and control of screentime for children.

Research led by the Drexel University College of Medicine in the US, conducted in 2020 analysed 2152 children and found that children who watched television and or videos at 12 months of age were significantly associated with greater ASD-like symptoms at two years of age with a 4.2 percent difference between the children that do and the children that do not.

Similarly, parent-child play daily compared with activity less than daily was significantly associated with fewer ASD-like symptoms with a difference of 8.9 percent for the two cohorts. For both groups, ASD risk prevalence rates were not reduced by changes to environments.

A study conducted by the University of Calgary in 2019 in Canada reported similar results with an association between poorer performance on developmental screening for children who had higher levels of screentime at 24 and 36 months than those that did not.

The findings of the study come as reports on the side effects of COVID-19 on society found that pandemic measures, including lockdowns, increased screentime for children that were remote learning at home.

Though more study is needed to test for causation between screen time and behavioural disorders within children, research has indicated that the current recommendation is to manage screen time, “to offset the potential consequences of excess use.”