How old can you play with your phone and watch TV?

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is associated with multiple factors, such as genomic mutations, and various risk factors in the prenatal, perinatal and neonatal periods

In 2019, the World Health Organization issued a guideline on healthy physical activity, sedentary behavior and sleep for children under 5 years old: Children should not be exposed to electronic screens when they are ≤ 1 years old

A recent study published in JAMA Pediatrics further found that in boys, prolonged exposure to electronic screens at age 1 was significantly associated with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder at age 3

Screenshot source: JAMA Pediatrics

The researchers analyzed data from 84,030 mother-child pairs in Japan.

The analysis found that the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder at age 3 was 0.

Logistic regression analysis showed that more screen time in boys at age 1 was associated with a significantly higher diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder at age 3

That is, at age 1, the odds of developing an autism spectrum disorder at age 3 also increased as the child spent more screen time

Screen viewing for less than 1 hour per day was associated with a 38% increased risk of developing autism spectrum disorder, but it was not statistically significant (OR=1.

In this cohort study, boys had more screen time at 1 year of age, even after accounting for children's susceptibility to autism spectrum disorder and other factors such as maternal feeding attitudes and economic status during lactation, the paper concluded.

The paper also touches on limitations of the study, such as children's disease diagnosis and daily screen exposure time provided by parents, which may have biased the results

References

[1] Kushima M, Kojima R, Shinohara R, et al.