Abstract
Objective
To describe daily recreational screen time of 6-17-year-old children with and without autism and association of >2 hours screen time per day with the likelihood of meeting Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations of 1 hour/day physical activity, sleep 9-12 hours/night for ages 6-12 years, 8-10 hours/night for ages 13-17 years, and body mass index (BMI) <85%ile.
Methods
Secondary analysis of 2020 National Survey of Children's Health. Children were divided into 2 groups: autism and neurotypical. Parents reported 6-17-year-old children's weekday recreational screen time, physical activity, sleep duration, weight, and height. Variables were dichotomized: screen time ≤2 hours / screen time >2 hours and met / did not meet each CDC recommendation. Descriptive statistics, χ2, and logistic regression were used. Data were weighted and adjusted for complex sampling.
Results
Among 1030 children with autism and 24 205 neurotypical children aged ≥6 years, 68.6% vs 56.5% respectively had >2 hours of daily screen time (P = .001). More 6-12-year-olds with autism viewed >2 hours screen time daily (62.9% vs 48.0%, P < .001), but adolescents in the 2 groups did not differ. Those with autism and >2 hours screen time/weekday less often met CDC daily physical activity recommendation (16.2% vs 29.8%, P = .004), but this relationship held only among adolescents (11.0% vs 27.8%, P = .009). Among those 6–12 years old, with autism, screen time >2 hours/day was associated with a lower percentage with BMI ≥85%ile (22.2% vs 43.9%, P = .035). The autism group had no significant differences in sleep duration. In contrast, screen time >2 hours/day is associated with not meeting any of the guidelines among neurotypical children.
Conclusion
These findings may have implications for counseling on realistic screen time habits.
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