Lately, with the rise in autism in children in our society, all manner of reasons have been given as to why this is occurring, from the use of vaccines, pollution, toxic chemicals, and viral infections that occur during pregnancy. or even children being born to parents who are older. Of course, with the nomination of known anti-vaxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be the new head of Health and Human Services, the possible relationship between the vaccinations of young children and the potential development of autism in them has once again being given what would appear to be an inordinate amount of attention, although to date there has been no well-known scientific evidence linking those two things.
Autistic children invariably often have trouble taking in and understanding social or verbal cues coming from others, or generally speaking, in adapting to the specifics of the particular social environment which they share with other children. In particular, they have difficulty reading non-verbal cues from others, and so often tend to remain isolated within themselves. Therefore, because these are all significant developmental issues related to one’s ability to attend, it seems possible that autism might in fact be a potential developmental malady related to a unique form of attention deficit disorder.
In addition, it seems to be more than a little possible that autistic children might be prone to developing this type of attention disorder simply because we now live in a culture in which a potentially distracted awareness is being engendered in many of us by our compulsive use of digital devices. Therefore, it likewise seems possible that within such a culture, because the autistic child is endeavoring to relate to others whose capacity to attend is already significantly compromised, his own ability to relate to the social or verbal cues he receives from them might also become compromised. Therefore, this might then become a pattern which engenders an inability to relate.
It has now become a well-known fact, if not an absolute truism that has become part of our cultural landscape, that the amount of time which people spend with their digital devices, and the Internet itself, have engendered what can only be described as a permanent state of distracted awareness in many of us as we jump relentlessly between websites, text messages, and e-mails, with it even being articulated by any number of cognitive theorists and psychologists that our current Internet addiction has even released certain chemicals into our brains, such as dopamine, which threaten to make our addiction not just psychological, but even physical.
Therefore, it would appear that, relative to the recent growth of autism among children in our current age. the question which might need to be asked is what part a distracted awareness engendered by people’s use of digital tools might play in creating conditions in the lives of young children which might actually be responsible for engendering an autistic mind-set and autistic behavior, particularly in terms of a child’s interactions with those whom he or she relates closely who spend a great deal of time in the digital world? In other words, this might in fact be a different type of developmental issue which needs to be studied relative to childhood autism.
To this date, autism in children has been looked at almost entirely in terms of medical issues such as viral infections during pregnancy, environmental issues such as exposure to toxic chemicals, or genetic issues such as aging parents who have children. Yet it might appear to be entirely possible that autism is in part a result of developmental issues such as the nature of a child’s personal interactions and the potential effect of those on the type of distracted awareness which is unique to autism. In a digital age in which the possible effects on all of us which our use of digital devices and the Internet may be engendering in us, this might be something which might require a certain degree of our attention.