JCPSLP VOL 15 No 1 March 2013

youth interact with others using email or taking part in chat rooms?” which the parents were asked to rank from “several times a day” to “less often”. The question “During the past few weeks, how has the youth spent most of his/ her time when she/he wasn’t working or going to school?” was asked, and the responses provided were then categorised into 1) uses electronic or computer games, 2) uses computer for Internet or email, and 3) watches TV or videos. Parents were also required to rank their children’s conversational ability and social competence using an ordinal scale. The youths with ASD were compared with youths with (a) intellectual disabilities (n = 850); (b) speech/ language impairments (n = 860); and (c) learning disabilities (n = 880). Results revealed that 64.2% of the youths with ASD spend most of their time engaging in nonsocial media. This was significantly different ( p < .001) to individuals in the speech/language impairment group (33.5%) and those in the learning disability group (34.9%). They were also significantly more likely ( p < .01) to watch TV and use electronic games, compared to the other groups. The group with ASD was less likely to use computers for email, chat or to access the Internet (13.2%).

The authors noted that the group with ASD had a significantly higher percentage of youths with no conversation ability compared to the other groups; and individuals in the ASD group were more likely to have a computer at home. These findings may influence the results. The percentage of youths with ASD who spent most of their free time watching television was about the same as the group with intellectual disabilities. This may indicate that the intellectual ability may not be a significant predictor of television use. There were several limitations in this study. As the sample included youths who are eligible for special education services under the autism category, it is highly specific and the results may or may not generalise to all the ASD population. In addition, there were no standardised measures of communication skills, cognitive ability or social interactions included in the data. The survey methodology mainly depended on parent-report which may be subject to bias. These limitations might affect the ability to replicate the study or generalise the results in the future. Despite the limitations, this study provides a useful contribution to literature regarding screen-based media usage among ASD population.

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JCPSLP Volume 15, Number 1 2013

Journal of Clinical Practice in Speech-Language Pathology