I think you have to be careful to not throw out the baby with the bathwater.
People see difficult child 1 and now difficult child 3 watching TV (DVDs, the same ones, over and over, often stopping to rewind a favourite scene and replay it, over and over) and computer games of EVERY sort. Again, over and over. And people get critical.
I have copped a lot of flak for allowing it but the only way we could have stopped it would have been to get rid of all TVs in the house. And for us, there are too many reasons not to. We lived without TVs for three days in 1994 during the really bad fires when we had to stay with another family in another suburb - as a result we were totally unprepared for what we had to drive through, to get back home when we were finally allowed to return. If we had seen some TV news, SOME vision of what had happened and how complete had been the destruction, maybe we would have coped better.
TV is not necessarily bad. However, if there is a chance your child has Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) in any way then you may observe your child watching TV obsessively. But is this such a bad thing? Chances are, your Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) child is likely to obsess about SOMETHING. TV is high on the list of likelys, as are computer games. Very few households will actually totally remove these and so as a law of averages, we are much more likely to see our kids using these technologies obsessively. Take them away and our kids will obsess out other things. I have a nephew who obsessed about string. He told Santa one Christmas that he didn't need toys or gadgets for Christmas, all he wanted was a big ball of string, because with string he could make whatever he wanted. That boy grew up to be a car mechanic and is Aspie, I believe.
I look at how difficult child 3 used everything he wanted in his environment to help him learn to adapt. Among those things he used were TV, DVD and computer games. He played with every electrical gadget he could, he would take things apart when he could, reprogram computers and used computers from an early age. At about a year old he retuned our TV so all channels went to one network. He bypassed the password protection on our computer. He was using a simple software package on our oldest computer and was a fast typist by the time he was 2. He was playing with mazes on the computer also, as well as playing piano and learning how to read sheet music.
A kid like difficult child 3 is one you can't keep away from your technology. We were able to stop him form bypassing our password protection on the computer only by banning him from it when we caught him, plus giving him access to his own computer. It cost us nothing - we found it dumped on the side of the road with a damaged operating system. We reconfigured it with a new operating system and loaded it with educational games suitable for a baby and let him go on it.
difficult child 3 was very quick to learn how to use the CD player. All the kids were. I would put a CD on to play when the kids were put to bed for their nap, I would set it on 'repeat' and it would keep playing all through their nap, covering the sounds of my activity. Often I would first realise the baby was awake when I saw them toddle out in their nappy, go to the CD player, stop the CD, eject it and put it away in the case.
There were two ways I could have taken this - I could have raised the sides of the cots to stop them from climbing out, and also put the CD player in a cage to stop the babies from getting to it. Or I could move the baby into a low bed, teach him/her the rules about using the CD player and burn back-up copies of the favourite CDs just in case. The latter is in the direction of progress; the former blocks the child from developing.
difficult child 3 would watch DVS with subtitles on. He still prefers to watch TV with subtitles on. He plays computer games with subtitles where possible. His hearing is perfect. But for him, reading is such a vital part of his communication skills, that he uses it as an adjunct to his understanding. His (also autistic) best friend is similar - the boy's father once said to me, "He watches the same DVD over and over, but keeps stopping and starting it, rewinding bits to play them over and over, a few seconds here or there. It has nothing to do with the plot, there is nothing going on in his head, it's just blind repetition."
difficult child 3 had always done the same thing. But it certainly wasn't empty activity, in both cases I believe the boys were using the DVDs to learn (in his own way) the things he felt he needed. He was learning language, he was learning social interaction and body language, he was learning facial expression, he was learning context - and learning it all as a package deal, all the connectedness of it all. By rewinding and playing it again, he was rehearsing it over and over.
Of course difficult child 3 and his friend both were very echolalic and could recite the scripts of their favourite movies and TV shows in entirety, as well as snippets. The interesting thing was when they began to quote segments of movie scripts appropriately in response to a 'cue'. Mind you, it can have its drawbacks. An example that DIDN'T happen (but only because "Gone With the Wind" wasn't on the list of watched movies) would be difficult child 3 going out to play and me asking him, "But where are you going?" and having him reply, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a ****." He listened to the radio too, and would sing all the hits he heard, memorised as a series of sounds rather than known words but still memorised accurately. The memory is phenomenal, he would only need to hear something once or twice to have it down pat.
Is TV bad? Are DVDs bad? Computer games? They can be. You need to apply some controls and base your decisions on your observations of how your children are affected. But to apply a blanket ban purely because you see your child focussing on them a lot - if the child does not seem adversely affected by them, don't ban them.
If you see problems, don't assume that TV or gaming is the cause. Sometimes it's a treatment.
Marg