I said on another post, that a lot of things claiming to be 'studies' are really just someone having an idea and expressing it, without necessarily really doing any genuine research.
Could WiFi contribute to autism? Clearly it couldn't be the only cause because as you said, WiFi is too new, we didn't have it in Kanner's day. Or when Hans Asperger was writing his papers, in German.
And who is doing the research? While you don't have to be a scientist to do scientific research (example - Jane Goodall. She was only a typist and assistant when she first went to Gombe) it certainly does help. You do need to be able to think like a scientist.
Correlation does not equal causality. What this means - you can have a strong correlation - two seemingly unrelated things which tend to occur together; is there a connection? For example, people's height and arm span tend to be within a few inches. But how do you study it? You basically would have to examine the numbers in connected pairs to see if their connectedness has an identifiable reason. And it does - we tend to be in proportion, when we are a certain height our bodies tend to have other measurements within a certain range also. We describe the size of the human heart to be about the same size as that same person's fist; so a child's heart would be the size of that child's fist, and so on. That is one example of correlation.
Another example - a lot of autistic kids really love computer games. They will find this out as soon as they first experience them, in most cases. They gravitate to them, become very insistent on being allowed access to them. Often this occurs before the autism is identified. In our case, difficult child 3 was using a computer before he was a year old. At that age he needed some assistance but he was clearly interested and focussed, able to do some simple games and tasks on the computer. He was solving mazes and matching numbers and letters.
So did the use of the computer cause his autism? This is where we go beyond correlation and start to consider causality. Did we do the wrong thing by letting him use a computer from such a young age? Have we, in doing this, made him autistic?
Absolutely not. In this case, correlation is not causality. At least, not from that direction. However, you should also consider - did his autism cause his early computer use? This is far more likely.
And finally - is there a problem in this?
If you take the possibility that the autism was caused by his computer use, then you would be seeing the autism as a bad thing, and therefore anything that causes it is also a bad thing. You would want to limit computer use to 'protect' our children (and ourselves) from developing autism. And when you consider how much time people in the world spend on computers - boy, is this planet in trouble!
But if you flip this, and consider that kids with autism, especially the high-functioning ones, are drawn to computers - is this a bad thing? The autism has led to the increase in computer use especially from an early age. And how are these kids managing their autism, compared to those who have not had access to computers? From my own experience, being adept at computer use has increased difficult child 3's social index as in the mainstream classroom he had teachers and other students asking him to help them solve various problems. He's even fixed a computer problem for a neighbour, and been paid for his efforts. He saved a school computer which was misbehaving, warned the teacher to shut it down because it was vulnerable, which meant that vital data was protected.
In this case, I feel that the correlation between autism and computer use is fairly strong, the autism has been a strong factor in the early computer use but is not a damaging one.
It really does make a difference depending on how you look at it. But it is all conjecture until you actually work the numbers.
How many autistic kids have badgered their folks for WiFi access? And how many 'normal' kids? To determine if there is a genuine correlation, you would need to have RANDOM sampling, with enough subjects to reduce the 'noise' in the calculation. And yes, you have to do some calculating. You can't just look at it and GUESS - that is where the scientist comes in and first develops a theory. But a theory must be tested, you can't publish at tis stage declaring a result.
Let's say we are going to sample ONE high school. Poll ALL the kids in Grade 6. You would need diagnosis (preferably independently assessed by ONE expert, over all the subjects). You would need to define what you mean by WiFi access. And because WiFi is not accessed all day every day, the degree of access is a variable likely to make this a much harder problem.
You need to reduce all other variables as much as possible.
Did the study do all this? Just the announced result gives me a lot of doubt on this score.
You could argue that there is a correlation between having autism, and breathing. All autistic kids (at least the living ones) breathe. So does breathing cause autism? Does autism cause breathing?
Statistics in the hands of ignorant people can do a great deal of damage. Running off at the mouth with statistics is like running with scissors.
I have seen supposedly reputable, intelligent scientists make some very stupid mistakes using statistics. Either they were being thick, or fraudulent. I won't go into detail, but I had a chance to see them close-up, to be present when they presented their work at conferences and hear them complain when the reputable journals refused to publish their work (because it was shoddily done, boys!). I took plenty of notes which was a good thing, because even the conference where their work was first presented, pulled it from their (later published) proceedings - unheard of.
And their biggest mistake was based on their misunderstanding of correlation.
They had stated that they had found a very high correlation between patients excreting a certain chemical, and patients at some stage given a diagnosis of Disease X from a particular medical team. The probability factor they claimed was impossibly large, the equivalent of 99.995%. Therefore, they claimed, having Disease X meant you excreted this unique chemical. Wacko! We have a diagnostic test!
But the problem - the team of doctors making the diagnosis went back over their own records and announced that they had got it wrong in about half their cases. So the correlation was NOT with having Disease X, but with having a diagnosis of Disease X from that team of doctors.
Basically, the researchers had TOO GOOD a result, there was something very screwy with their theory. However, they were not willing to let go of what seemed to them to be such a good result, and therefore they became the laughing stock of serious scientists around the country (and internationally).
But in making the mistake of falling in love with their own theory, they missed something very important - they had a high correlation to SOMETHING - what was it?
I believe that the main factor that all the patients had in common was PAIN. Something in common with every patient, but there can be many different causes. However, pain affects us physically. I believe they had found something which is excreted by patients in pain. Now, having a chemical diagnostic test for pain is kind of stupid, most patients will tell you if there is pain. But it could have been useful, they could have tested it to see if at last science had an objective measure of pain. Pain researchers would have been very grateful.
The last I heard of this mob, they were focussing more on pain management and had stopped fussing about Disease X. They had also stopped chasing the media for attention; there are only so many times you get egg on your face before you decide to get out of the henhouse.
Where did these blokes go wrong? They didn't choose their subjects carefully enough. They had NO control subjects (who, if they also showed positive for this chemical, would have totally destroyed their beautiful theory). Their sample size was small. The study was not blind in any way - the researchers always knew which subject had tested positive, and what their history was. This mean they were developing AND testing their theory AFTER the fact, never a good idea. It's like having a cola taste test but knowing exactly which one you're drinking when you decide what you like.
When you become a Warrior Parent you have to become an expert in so many things. Learning how to be a scientific researcher is only one of the many careers you have to embrace. Is your child on medication? On a special diet? Then you are testing your child, titrating for dosage and reaction. It's unavoidable. Or maybe you're testing the efficacy of the therapy your child is on. We are all testing the efficacy of the discipline and child-rearing techniques.
Therefore by default, all parents are researchers. How well we do this will depend on how well we learn the skills of research as well as how well we carry out the studies on our kids. And while it's perfectly OK to love your kids, you should never fall in love with your theory. If something isn't working, you should feel perfectly OK about rejecting it and moving on to something with more promise.
The idiots who pass comment on the 'Net are trying to bolster their own inferior sense of importance by belittling other people. They are ignorant but do not care; because to care is to acknowledge their own ignorance and to assign a sense of personal shame to it. Heaven forbid they should feel any sense of inadequacy, no matter how well deserved!
Idiotic research deserves idiotic comments. And any media publishing this are only showing their own ignorance in this area; that, or the lack of any real story that day.
You don't have to look very far on the 'Net to see rubbish like this. I get riled too, when I find it, I have to make a conscious effort to click away the page when I find this sort of rubbish.
Life is too short to waste it reading nonsense which makes you angry. Instead, learn how to recognise reputable research and USE the information (where you can) to boost your own understanding.
Marg
