Cornell University researchers are reporting what appears to be a [a href="http://www.johnson.cornell.edu/faculty/profiles/waldman/autpaper.html"]statistically significant relationship between autism rates and television watching[/a] by children under the age of 3. The researchers studied autism incidence in California, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington state.
They found that as cable television became common in California and Pennsylvania beginning around 1980, childhood autism rose more in the counties that had cable than in the counties that did not. They further found that in all the Western states, the more time toddlers spent in front of the television, the more likely they were to exhibit symptoms of autism disorders. The Cornell study represents a potential bombshell in the autism debate.
