To wonder why screens aren’t investigated as a cause of childhood behaviour issues?

[Peony1897]

We now know that screens, and in particular tablets, have really horrific effects on young children and their emotional/social development - in particular speech, regulating anger, sensory issues and how they interact with their peers.

So why is it whenever we see a thread where a small child has some or all of the above issues, and the OP clearly mentions tablet use or ‘all they are interested in is screens’, the answer is nearly always an autism assessment rather than removal of screens?

Genuinely curious as to why such a clear risk factor is never picked up on.

We don't have any tablets in our home and we don't allow our children to look at our phones other than for video calls, so old fashioned TV is the only screen time my son has, and it's strictly rationed.

Even then it has a noticeable impact on his behaviour to the point where we feel we need to ration it even further or cut it out altogether.

It’s not utter crap, she’s 100% correct.

The ADOS assesses observed behaviour, but it is not a test like a blood test which tests ‘positive’ for autism. At the end of the day it’s the opinion of the assessor doing the ADOS that counts.

That’s why so many parents get private ASD assessments when the NHS won’t diagnose. There is variability.

As our understanding of ASD develops, so do the methods used to assess and diagnose. That’s why more children are diagnosed now compared to the 90s. The boundaries are changing all the time.
The same isn’t true for chicken pox or Down Syndrome where you have a straightforward test and that’s that.

I’m not saying that screen time should not be moderated or whatever. I don’t think unlimited screen time is good for any child but for children who have more difficulty understanding the world etc, screen time can be useful. There is some emerging evidence - I will need to look it up.

The other thing is that not all screen time is equal. When talking about children’s behaviour, if they are constantly on Roblox then yes it’s going to make them angry and frustrated.

My ND 5 year old enjoys watching videos that explain social norms to her, or about science, or about the human body etc. I limit the access and has to actual games.

The question should be about parents managing what their child is accessing in the way of screen time.

I think I was quite lucky in some senses that I was poor when DD was little. I couldn't afford screens for her - we had no tablet, my phone was a brick, didn't even have a tv. The only screen was my laptop which isn't something toddlers can really use so her screen time was limited to occasionally watching Moomins with me on my laptop. Although she uses her phone too much as a teenager now she doesn't use other screens much.
On the other hand when DS was born I was in a much better financial situation and I had to take him with me to group physiotherapy when he was a toddler so I introduced a tablet then to stop him disturbing the group, and I regret it so much! Before that he wasn't interested in screens at all, barely looked at the tv, but I trained him to like the tablet and now he's such a screen addict. And at nursery his teachers picked up on issues with him, slow processing speed amongst other things, and I do wonder if there was a connection (though thankfully at 7 now neither his teacher or the special ed teacher are reporting any issues)

No, no - you are wrong. The test should be multidisciplinary and should involve testing from more than one clinician. My daughter had her assessment recently - 6 practitioners. They all had a meeting together afterwards.

Do you have an autistic child? If not, stop speaking over autistic people who understand the condition far better than you do.

The ADOS really shows up autistic behaviours that differ hugely from NT responses.

My apologies, maybe I wasn’t clear. I meant like a definitive blood test/DNA test/brain scan.
It’s diagnosed by observing behaviours. But there is a lot of cross over between behaviours caused by ASD/ADHD and behaviours that could have been caused by too much screen use.
This is NOT the same as saying ‘screen use causes ND’ not at all. I’m saying that it can mimic it.
Much like if I have a runny nose and I’m sneezing, do I have a cold or allergies?
Hope that makes sense

I am ADOS trained.

Look, I am not saying ASD does not exist or anything like that.

I am defending the point made by the previous poster that testing for ASD and ADHD cannot test in a way that rules out confounding variables.

If, say, excessive screen use from infant-hood produced the same behaviours, social anxieties and regulation difficulties as ADHD or Autism, we couldn’t rely on an assessment to be able to distinguish with 100% infallibility between the two. Because the only way to diagnose these conditions is to assess the behaviour. The CAUSE of the behaviour is not testable. You can rule things out, but you cannot do a blood test for autism or adhd.

Children who have experienced significant trauma, for example, are often diagnosed as adhd/autistic, because they tick all the boxes. Would they have the same problems if they had never been traumatised? Nobody knows, and there is no way of knowing.

kids under a certain age do not need screen time whatsoever. My 3 year old hasn’t been on a phone or iPad. I hate seeing kids on their phones/ipad when out having meals etc.

Babies are born with brains primed to learn language and learn about social interactions. But they need to see it, and they need to be interacted with by their care givers/other social circles for them to learn. Hearing speech from a screen doesn’t cut it.
It would not surprise me at all if speech delay in NT children is caused by that lack of being spoken directly to. It would not surprise me if NT children struggle socially because they haven’t been witness to ordinary social interactions on a regular basis because of watching a screen. It would not surprise me if their attention spans have dwindled because of the swiping and constant dopamine hit being on a device can bring. It would not surprise me if NT children have behavioural issues because of too much screen use. All of these issues thrown in can present as, and look like ND traits. But it isn’t ND. And as you can’t do a simple blood test to check, how would they know?

You’ve worded this much better than me!

My child has no ND traits as far as I can tell, and I do allow TV and a tablet when travelling, but I have banned the following as I could see an impact on their behaviour:

• Netflix, or any other streaming platform where you pick and series and watch on repeat. They then get very frustrated when it’s removed, they are entranced.
• Youtube. This we had as it was easy on phone if getting bored in restaurant or similar. Became apparent they would just want to choose the most mind-numbing repetitive thing which I am sure was almost hypnotising them.
• Programmes like Cocomelon, which seems designed to be addictive while also nonsense.

CBeebies (live) is great. Programme changes frequently, humans on it, eventually something will come on they don’t like and they’re bored so they’ll opt to stop watching.

I may or course be massively projecting, as this is how I consumed TV as a child.

They certainly don't want to take responsibility for the child they chose to have, everything is someone else's responsibility, that's society's job.

It seems obvious to you in the way that lots of very complex issues seem obvious to laypeople. "Seems" is the clue here. Hope that helps.

Completely agree as I know it affects me! My attention span has reduced dramatically thanks to smartphones. Neurodiverse children do not need screens either, how do you think we managed before they were invented!!!

screen use unfortunately can mimic the symptoms of nd whether it “causes” permanent changes in our brains is unknown yet

I may or course be massively projecting, as this is how I consumed TV as a child

Yes me too! And we may be projecting, we can’t know for absolute certain. All we can do is remove what we think the cause may be and if the behaviour improves, we don’t do it.
Im far from a perfect parent, DS7 does watch TV and probably a little too much of it. He isn’t allowed to watch YouTube, he has a tablet but I removed all apps apart from one to listen to music. It’s been in a drawer gathering dust for about a year and now he is old enough to start ‘playing out’ - he seems more interested in doing this. He’ll sit in a car for a two hour journey with nothing but being able to pick songs to play and he’s fine with it. He knows how to be bored and will create games etc. I have never let him watch a screen in a restaurant or similar.

However. I don’t know for definite that it’s because of lack of screens that I’ve ended up with a calm child. I suspect it’s just luck as his dad is so laid back! I don’t know if I would have caved with a screen if he was more difficult to manage. I’d like to think not but then I also know that I can’t always be arsed to cook healthy, homecooked dinners

ASD and ADHD are a significant cause of trauma for children. The condition predates the trauma, all other things being equal.

You need to get on your tablet and Google screen time and health effects on children. The evidence base is well established but it's an effort for parents to limit and find alternatives and the majority of parents are addicted to screens too. So it's all normalised.
Schools delivery education through screens, all interaction in life involves apps and creating online accounts. The public health issues this is creating are now becoming obvious. Who knows where it ends.

Totally agree. It was non-ND related trauma I meant in that example, such as children in the care system who are known to have experienced abuse or neglect, i.e. those cases where things are not equal.
But absolutely ND can be a cause of trauma too.

If you’re not a layperson can you enlighten us with your findings?

I didn't claim to be an expert.

Rather than being mystic and evasive, why not contribute your opinion?

How do you know for sure?

"We now know that screens, and in particular tablets, have really horrific effects on young children and their emotional/social development."

Do we know this?

What are the actual findings of the research and the quality of the research?

Is the effect dose dependent? Is it content or medium dependent? What if a family asks for help with behaviour issues and it transpires their child watches 30 minutes of cbeebies a day?

It's not rocket science is it. If a child is given a phone to look at rather than interacting with people, on a regular basis, that child will be delayed in developing language and social skills.
We know how children learn - and actively blocking them from this is obviously going to have impact on their learning.

It is a huge issue and I completely agree it should be being tackled, but I don't think anyone really needs research papers to figure out that constant screen time leading to significant reduced human interaction is going to majorly impact on the skills that kids learn from human interaction. It's really very basic.

I posted some recent research and conclusion earlier in the thread.

Google brings up loads of research, have a read.