An increasing number of children diagnosed with autism has many experts searching for a cause, wondering if the condition can be prevented, and what makes one child more susceptible to autism that others. Autism specialist Dr. Lain McGilchrist was contacted by several teachers that showed concern for students in class, each showing lesser emotion than the collective and were less empathetic as well. Concerned that the children may have be undiagnosed for autism, Dr. McGilchrist conducted a study and phone a common denominator among children that show less empathy and emotion, each used a smartphone on a regular basis.
Dr. McGilchrist was adamant about helping the teachers, as each has been in the profession for many years and ahs seen a significant change in the children in their classrooms, growing concerned that something was happening that may be out of their control. Dr. McGilchrist was interviewed by the Telegraph and shared his thoughts on the children that showed the basic signs of being autistic.
“These teachers have been teaching for 30 years and had found only a couple of people not able to do these simple tasks. People are increasingly finding it difficult to communicate at an emotional level in what appears to be features of autism.”
Dr. McGilchrist became concerned at the amount of time that children were spending on smartphones interacting with others, rather than face to face interactions that would promote emotional responses and empathy. Instead, he found children were expressing their emotion via emojies and abbreviated text, such as LOL, according to Metro U.K.
‘Children spend more time engaging with machines and with virtual reality than they used to in the past, where they don’t have to face the consequences of real life. In virtual environments they don’t have to interpret the subtle cues of real-life environments like when they are playing with children in the woods.’
According to Dr. McGilchrist, the children in question are not necessarily autistic, but are showing signs of autism dimply due to their lack of emotion and ability to be empathetic. However, D. Nadja Reissland does not completely agree that the smartphones may simply be the cause and feels that the children in question need more extensive research than the small study that Dr. McGilchrist conducted.
“It could be true but we need to know the background of these children. They might not want to talk about their emotions or might not be used to. They might also come from different cultures where they are normally not supposed to show emotions or English may not be their first language.”
[Photo by John Moore/Getty Images]
Expert Warns Smartphones Are Making Children Autistic, Becoming Less Empathetic And Showing Less motion is an article from: The Inquisitr News
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