Research

Education and SSAS-C    •    Policy

Our Role We in SSAS-C believe it is social-communication itself that induces the development of the ‘social brain’ even in children who for one reason or another are predisposed to ASD. The reason for this predisposition maybe genetic, gender, toxic, brain damage, a mixture of factors or factors that are even now unknown. Each child is unique but we believe for all children, social interaction is vital to social understanding and development. In the newborn and early infancy period (before six months) these social experiences revolve around eye contact, face-to-face vocalizations, lullabies, and baby-in-arms interactions between the baby and his caretakers. By six months of age almost all infants will have developed three dimensional vision allowing the important milestone of joint attention to appear. From then on the infant will use the eye contact he has already developed to explore the world around him, learning language and non-verbal communication, social behavior and norms, and in general the world outlook of the family to which he was born. He will do this by attending and reacting to the eyes, faces, and body movements of his caretakers and from listening to their words and songs.

In contrast, the infant whose attention is captured by non-social devices such as electronic toys, computer tablets, and video screens will become socially isolated, perhaps happily so, but he will miss being a part of these vital social interactions with his family and the social world surrounding him. He may be on his way to the isolated world of ASD.

Our idea is simple. Some children under two years of age especially boys are susceptible to ASD. Socially interactive experiences help prevent this turn of events while non-social experiences such as screen time can lead the way, directly to ASD.

The fundamental purpose of SSAS-C is to encourage the thorough exploration and study of these ideas in the following ways.

Re-interpretation of Existing Research.

Thousands of studies have been completed centered on ASD. The research of a given time period is always interpreted in the context of the beliefs, ideas, and understandings that are current at the time the research is being done. SSAS-C will try to enlist the cooperation of investigators in the field to re-examine their data in light of these new ideas.

For instance, many studies have been done showing a relationship between prenatal pollution exposure and the subsequent development of ASD. Could it be children who live in areas heavy with air pollution stay inside more and are thereby exposed to more screen time? Perhaps increased screen time exposure can better explain the connection of ASD to outside air pollution. It may be that a review of the data will reveal connections that were not thought of at the time the research was originally done.

Encouraging Existing Researchers to Examine Current Protocols.

There is a lot of research going on now and more being planned in the area of ASD. Almost invariably among the factors being looked at in these studies, you will NOT find any inquiries about eye contact, joint attention, screen time exposure, or the conduct of the first two years of life. These are the factors that we in SSAS-C feel are so important. Yet they are routinely ignored.

For instance there is a large NIH study, going on right now, that among a host of other factors examines the role of gut flora as a possible cause of ASD. It seems absurd but there it is. If gut flora can be studied why cannot something so simple and obvious as screen time exposure be studied at the same time? SSAS-C will encourage researchers to routinely collect information on screen time, eye contact, and joint attention at the same time they collect the rest of the data for their studies.

Encourage Researchers to study Social-Communication and Screen Time during the 1st two years of Life.

New studies need to be done that directly look at the issues we in SSAS-C feel are vital to the understanding and prevention at ASD. Recently a study by Warren Jones and Ami Klin “Attention to eyes is present but in decline in 2-6 month-old infants later diagnosed with autism” appeared in the journal Nature (doi:10.1038/nature 12714). This study showed children who will later develop ASD start out with normal attention to eyes but over the first 2 years of age pay less and less attention to this vital channel of social communication. This study highlights the need to do studies on ASD in early childhood, before the age of two.

It is easy to see how some babies might stop paying attention to eyes that do not pay attention to back to them. The same goes for voices. These are the eyes and voices he will find watching screens and listening to electronic toys. SSAS-C wishes to encourage the research that will look at the effect of eliminating screen time and electronic toys during this vital time of a child’s life.

On the other side, are there some things parents and caregivers can do to ramp up eye-contact experiences in early infancy and joint attention experiences later on? How do you get a baby, perhaps one predisposed to ASD for one reason or another, to pay attention to you and the other people around him? It may not be so easy. We in SSAS-C wish to encourage the development of simple techniques any concerned parent or caregivers can use to encourage social behavior in their baby, infant and toddler. In addition relevant studies are needed to show how these kinds of interventions will actually help prevent ASD. SSAS-C will encourage research along these lines.

Carry out research on Social-Communication and Screen Time.

SSAS-C at this point has limited resources. Nevertheless, we will carry out the studies we know need to be done. For this effort we will need your support.

Education and SSAS-C

A major part of SSAS-C’s mission is to insure that every caregiver and parent who has a child less than two years of age understands and follows the recommendations of The American Academy of Pediatrics on screen-time. We want to get this message out to grandparents as well. Grandparents may have a special insight about the conduct of infancy since they remember how infants were entertained and amused by family members before the invasion of the screen-time and electronic toys took their place.

We want all parents and caregivers to understand what screen-time is and why it may interfere with social, language, and cognitive development in children less than 2 years of age. Likewise we want all parents to understand the importance of spending time, lots of time with their babies focusing on experiences that will develop eye contact early on and joint attention later. We want all parents and caregivers to understand the course of normal social development during the first two years of life and when to be concerned if the child is developing ASD so they will seek professional attention.

Professionals

Many people are involved in the care of newborns, infants, and toddlers. We in SSAS-C wish to reach out of all these professionals to share the message that ASD may be preventable by simple measures and that we all should be doing our part to encourage parents to follow the recommendation of The American Academy of Pediatrics to avoid all screen-time before the age of two.

These professionals include

Physicians- Pediatricians, Family Practitioners, Obstetricians

Nursing- Nursery, Intensive Care, Early Child

Child Care & School- Nursery School

Developmental Psychology

Speech Therapy

Other areas.

Policy

We in SSAS-C believe more studies need to be done in the areas we have identified. Meanwhile we cannot sit idly waiting for the outcome of these studies before taking action to protect vulnerable newborns, infants, and toddlers. We believe public policy needs to change now in the following areas.

First a public health campaign should be instituted demonstrating the importance of eye-contact, joint attention, and the dangers of screen-time. The campaign could be modeled on the “Back to Sleep” campaign which did so much to reduce Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

At the same time a moratorium on the marketing, production, and sale of all videos, ap’s, tablets, television programming and electronic toys aimed at children less than two years of age should be instituted and kept in place until such time as the safety of these products and productions can be conclusively shown.