Autism linked to white noise

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Recently, I read a book entitled " The Brain That Changes Itself" by Norman Doidge - which is a fascinating book, I highly recommend it - It stated that there have been recent studies showing a correlation between infants (0 - 2 years) that grow up close to white noise sources like motor ways (highways) / airports and autism.

To that, I'd like to start a poll to see what the correlation is like on WP.

4 Options

1. 0 - 2 years with lots of white noise.
2. 0 - 2 years with intermitent white noise.
3. 0 - 2 years with almost zero white noise.
4. 0 - 2 years with loud noise, but not specifically white noise.

Good lord, I have no idea.

And where do people come up with hypotheses like this?

we didn't get tv until i was about 8. i think it's ridiculous.

It is ridiculous not getting a tv until you were 8!

I'm old. I was 8 in 1966. It was black and white and you had to get up out of your seat to change the channel. Life was hard then!

My first few yrs. (0-5) were on a farm (probably very little white noise). But I was always sensitive to sounds (can openers, door bells, fire alarms (still am), motor cycles (still am), shouting (still am), etc). Some noises even make me feel like I'm going blind/deaf, losing my balance, or going to pass out (like fire alarms) if I do not plug my ears with my fingers at least. I even had to build up an immunity to band music at football games (was in the stands for color guard right in front of marching band during games/owwy). Can you be exposed to a lot of white noise in a hospital (like in the NICU-neonatal intensive care unit)? I was in their a while (1st 11 days), wonder if that affected me?

This might sound really stupid, but what exactly is white noise?

Remember rabbit-ears? I used to be the one who had to stand to one side of the TV and hold onto the end of one of the antennae to improve reception on bad days. Every time I leaned over to see the show, some one would howl that I was in the way.

Regards,

Patricia

I have rabbit ears on my tv.

Wouldn't this stimulate the developing mind to the external environment? I thought the big idea in autism was a failure to capture outside information, eg. mother's facial expressions and following someone's gaze. I have no true memory of myself at that age that I take as being accurate.

My son had some issues as a baby sleeping, so we used white noise. I would put a baby monitor reciever in his room on, with no transmitter, so the result was white noise static. It was the only way he could sleep thru the night. He has AS, altho undiagnosed at this time, but then so do I and I was not exposed to white noise as a baby.

No one in my house could stand "white noise" and we didn't live anyplace near an airport or highway. My kids have lived in a similar environment.

We didn't have AC so in summer all windows were open. I remember specifically the sound of summer- kinda like a lot of white noise- city traffic, hum, really, punctuated by occasional cicadas.

(This would have to be a longitudinal study.)

Really do not remember! The correlation seems spurious, but why not?

If this matters, I do like white noise now. Confession: I LOVE front-loading clothes dryers. Does that count???

So many odd studies regarding Autism. I've read that (according to quasi-study?) Autism rates are higher in places where there is a lot of rain.....

I have a female cousin several years younger than me also diagnosed with AS, and our grandmother, long since passed exhibited virtually all the same Aspie traits and symptoms. That grandmother grew up on a farm at a time when automobiles were a rare novelty that no one but the wealthy could afford, so I don't think traffic was an issue. She went to school in a one-room schoolhouse before vaccines were widely developed, so that's not a likely culprit either. My vote is heredity and genetics all the way.

Could the link/correlation between autism and white noise exist just because of the realities of modern day life? Most of the population live in cities nowadays, there is going to be background noise. You'd expect a larger proportion of the autistic population to grow up with background noise.