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52
JCPSLP
Volume 15, Number 1 2013
Journal of Clinical Practice in Speech-Language Pathology
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.
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%).
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