Neurodivergent Children and Media Use | Meryl Alper, PhD

Studies mentioned in this episode, in order mentioned: 

Fisher, P.A. & Lombardi, J. (2025). The New Ecology of Early Childhood: Revisiting Bronfenbrenner’s Theory in the Context of Contemporary Challenges and Opportunities (Working Paper). Stanford Center on Early Childhood, Stanford University. https://earlychildhood.stanford.edu/new-ecology-early-childhood-revisiting-bronfenbrennerstheory-context-contemporary-challenges-and

Alper, M., Rauchberg, J. S., Simpson, E., Guberman, J., & Feinberg, S. (2023). TikTok as algorithmically mediated biographical illumination: Autism, self-discovery, and platformed diagnosis on #autisktok. New Media & Society, 27(3), 1378-1396. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231193091 

Alper, M., Christiansen, E., Allen, A. A., & Mello, S. (2021). Pediatric Media Guidance for Parents of Children on the Autism Spectrum: A Thematic Analysis. Health Communication, 38(8), 1572–1580. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2021.2020982

[Kris Perry]: Hello and welcome to the Screen Deep podcast, where we go on deep dives with experts in the field to decode young brains and behavior in a digital world. I’m Kris Perry, Executive Director of Children’s Screens and the host of Screen Deep.

 Today, our focus is on neurodivergent youth, how they use digital media, and how their experience is different from neurotypical children. Navigating digital media can present unique opportunities and challenges for neurodivergent youth, and understanding these dynamics is essential for fostering healthy well-being. 

Joining me is Dr. Meryl Alper, an associate professor at Northeastern University and a leading researcher examining how communication technologies interface with identity, disability, and neurodiversity. Welcome to Screen Deep, Meryl.

[Dr. Meryl Alper]: I’m happy to be here with you.

[Kris Perry]: Great. Let’s jump right into your expertise. How are neurodivergent kids using digital media, and is it materially different from neurotypical kids?

[Dr. Meryl Alper]: So first, I think it’s really important to define–as difficult as a term it is to define–neurodivergence. So, it’s really a very broad umbrella. And because of that, it can be hard to say anything completely definitively about neurodivergent children as an entire population. However, there are certain characteristics and challenges that many of them experience. And these can intersect, then, with their media and technology use. 

So, talking specifically about autism and ADHD, we can talk about different ways in which these diagnoses converge and also diverge. So with autism, there’s significant variation in terms of communication challenges and co-occurring medical needs, like epilepsy or sleep disturbance. But there are potential similarities across autism and ADHD in terms of impulse control and executive functioning. And, of course, some children and some adults are divergent in multiple ways, like having both autism and ADHD. So, that presents different neurotypical or neurodivergent profiles. 

So, the long and short of it is that for neurodivergent children, their media use could, in some ways, be fairly identical to a neurotypical child. So, just thinking about kids who get really immersed in video game play. And for others, they can have just completely different experiences. So thinking of–as I studied for my research, for example, in my book, Kids Across the Spectrums–autistic children who communicate in some ways through echolalia, or repeating language that they hear. And that might be from a TV show, or from a YouTube video, as a way to get a point across. So very, very different experiences. 

But what’s really been central in my research is to definitely account for the diagnosis, but also to consider the broader aspects of a child’s life. So, their socioeconomic status, their neighborhood, their access to appropriate health care and education–all of those things make huge differences in any child’s access and use of media and how their parents manage media. And so my big point is that those things matter, too, alongside and working with, or against, that diagnosis.

[Kris Perry]: Given all that variety in both children and their environments, is there a stereotype of neurodivergent kids in their media use?

[Dr. Meryl Alper]:  Yeah, so I think one that–again, in some ways it can hurt young people and in some ways might be a confidence booster of sorts–it’s just the idea that they’re all sort of tech-savvy savants who one day will eventually work in coding or the high tech industry. And there are some many incredibly skilled young people who are neurodivergent, who are great at remembering and noticing details, at pattern recognition, and creative problem solving. But we know for a fact that there is underemployment of neurodivergent individuals. Even for the rates of autistic people who have the capacity to get a college degree aren’t necessarily getting that degree. So I think that perception of ease and comfort with technology, that doesn’t necessarily then pan out in terms of important things like job security. 

And it also doesn’t mean that these kids necessarily understand–or they might understand the technical side of things–it doesn’t mean the social dimensions are any easier. So things we know, research-wise, that for autistic kids at least–they might be, some of them might be even more risk-averse in terms of online social interactions, but they have a hard time sometimes managing privacy settings. So there are pros and cons, there are strengths and challenges. 

And I would say that there’s another harmful piece of rhetoric out there that isn’t necessarily just about neurodivergent young people, but it’s about all kids. And I think that has to do with some of these claims about causality of media use. So, some studies really sort of skirt the line in terms of trying to make causal claims about screen media inducing autism or ADHD in children. And I think there’s a real danger there because, of course, symptoms like behavioral issues or sensory dysregulation–you know, they can absolutely be exacerbated by screens, especially for long periods, without breaks, without any adult co-use. But autism and ADHD are developmental conditions. People are born with it. And babies aren’t watching YouTube in utero. So we have to really, I think, be very careful about making spurious causal claims as well.

[Kris Perry]: Thanks for covering all of those misconceptions about neurodivergent and autistic children and their media use. You also mentioned how social and health inequities can affect the use of media by neurodivergent children. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

[Dr. Meryl Alper]: So contextualizing how–just like I think with a lot–some of the research on young people in media, it hasn’t necessarily been the most inclusive as it could have been historically. And that certainly is true for research on neurodivergence. And so thinking about populations who are often left out, thinking about the ways in which race and class and ethnicity and all their intersections, again, can shape any one child’s outcomes. 

So it’s really important, I found, to take what the human development expert, Urie Bronfenbrenner, terms the “Ecological Systems approach.” And that’s just a way to understand all of these different direct and indirect influences on any one child’s development over time. And, of course, how that child–people sometimes forget this part–that the child also influences the world around them in direct and indirect ways. 

So for neurodivergent kids, just thinking about their immediate environment, which is what Bronfenbrenner would call the “microsystem,” what does their home environment look like? What kind of space do they have to physically move around in? Is it a tiny apartment in an unsafe neighborhood with loud gun violence, and maybe media is used to protect the child or to drown out the sensory disturbances that are going on? Is it a large home with a big backyard and lots of opportunities for sensory stimulation? For some kids, that lack of physical space can affect their behavior, which can in turn then impact how they use media and technology. 

And then thinking about, like, that next layer in Bronfenbrenner’s model, the mesosystem, what kind of education are they getting? What kinds of therapeutic services do they have access to? What kinds of teachers and therapists do they get to learn from? Digital media can sometimes, you know, end up filling a gap for kids who aren’t getting stimulated enough in school or kids whose parents aren’t able to find them affordable and inclusive summer programming. And so sometimes, again, those kids end up turning to media. And so it’s not necessarily by choice, but it’s by necessity.

[Kris Perry]: I love that you brought up Bronfenbrenner’s Ecology of Childhood. I just had the opportunity to read a new paper riffing on that by Phil Fisher at Stanford and Joan Lombardi. And it’s really interesting how durable that framework is over these many generations. And here we are in this technological age and it’s still relevant that these different layers of a child’s world impact them and they impact the world. Are there benefits particular to neurodivergent children that digital media and communications actually do provide?

[Dr. Meryl Alper]:  Yeah, so I’d say that the benefits might be ones that other children, neurotypical children, experience, but that they can be particularly meaningful for this population. Again, relative to what other kinds of social opportunities do you have? What other kinds of communicative platforms do you have? It’s sort of–it’s  all about what’s relative. 

So, one of those benefits can be using digital media as a tool for building social relationships, and that’s both with–I’d say with family members and also with friends. With family, for some neurodivergent young people, it might be hard for siblings, parents, even sort of grandparents to find a way to connect with them. And media, like gaming, can provide structure to that social experience, especially when it’s something that’s led by the neurodivergent child’s interests or something that they can feel confident in. Again, relative to what other spaces can they feel like an expert where somebody listens to them, that that’s a unique–and also in my interviews with autistic young people in talking about their gaming, there are ways in which, sort of, the clear set of instructions that, sort of, a game provides, it makes them potentially more comfortable and reduces anxiety. So we have that going on. 

And socially, media can also be a way just to interpret the world. So thinking about kids, through my research, who were really into gaming and were especially interested, though, in videos where more than one gamer was hanging out together and sort of perceiving and, from afar, observing their social interactions and their social rapport. And so for some ways, you know, platforms like that can be a way for young people to learn more and about–I should say there’s lots of stuff on YouTube that is negative in terms of modeling behavior–but there are opportunities to see positive, pro-social interactions and positive social relationships that one might be able to kind of learn from and model in a very concrete and visual manner. 

For non- and minimally speaking neurodivergent young people–so young people generally, kind of, on the autism spectrum–that digital media can provide, besides just assistive technology–so, we say digital media. Of course, we might think of, you know, kind of mainstream technologies. Of course, there’s this whole range of assistive technologies, and for kids with complex communication needs, something called “augmentative and alternative communication,” so apps that enable being able to talk in the sort of voice output sense of things. So besides that, just having something to talk about, media is something that can motivate those children to engage in conversation. It doesn’t just have to be about, like, their day. It can be something that really gets a conversation going for some of these young people, and so gives them that practice, especially when some of these tools are not effectively used with them. Media is a jumping off point of something that kids just like to talk about, and if a kid has communication difficulties, it’s a stepping stone potentially to other kinds of areas of having conversation. 

And then, in general, I’d say that there are–for some neurodivergent kids, they can have very intense and very focused interests. And, again, it can also be hard for some of these kids to learn when to step away from the fact that the internet has endless possibilities to cultivate knowledge and to do so in a low-cost manner. So there are benefits absolutely in terms of learning and kids for whom they have just this really insatiable knowledge for particular topic areas. But that’s where you then–you get the benefits and the drawbacks to start to rub up against each other, because these may be kids for whom, you know, being able to self-regulate the time that you spend with devices is hard. So that, again, kind of–it feeds back into itself.

[Kris Perry]: Thank you for that really detailed and nuanced answer to something that I think gets very oversimplified in the press and even I think in, you know, casual conversations among parents and researchers. So, that really helped me understand better the depth and breadth of how technology can really play a big role in these kids’ lives. 

There’s a lot of talk about screen time and its possible harmful effects on children. And so, I’ve been thinking a lot about your work and wondering what you want to say about screen time. Is it a helpful measure of problematic digital media use? And, if not, how else should parents and society in general be framing our understanding of when and how digital media may be becoming unhealthy for both neurodivergent and neurotypical kids?

[Dr. Meryl Alper]: So, time is such an interesting thing that that’s what people have glommed onto as the most important thing. And actually, I’ve written about this in other venues where that’s really just, sort of, a descendant of concerns about television and concerns about prior uses of screens that maybe we weren’t thinking about in terms of media effects as complexly as we are now. So it’s just sort of a holdover. And it’s not to say that time isn’t a factor–it is a factor, but it’s not the full story. So I’d say with screen time as a shorthand, I don’t have such a problem with it. But we really only just take it literally. We only–screen plus time equals potentially bad or potentially good thing. Then that’s where the nuance needs to be. 

Thinking about–there is no, in the formulation of what is what we would call “problematic media use,” there’s no–screen time isn’t what you would include in that. You would really be focusing on kind of three main things and that’s addictive patterns of use. And so, of course, that can include time, that can include ignoring your internal state of when, you know, you might be hungry, you might be overtired, but your body is being overridden and not being able to pick up those signals. So we’ve got that. Also problematic is things like anti-social patterns of use. So, are you using media to harm yourself or to harm other people? And also risky patterns of use. So, in what ways might be the ways in which you’re using media–I mean, the kind of, I guess, like simple definition is people who text and drive. Like, that is a risky pattern of use and that is emblematic, in part, of problematic media use. 

Where it’s, I think–again, where screen time, but really I think more effectively problematic media use, for this neurodivergent population is important to frame more fully, is to take the bigger picture when it comes to mental health. So it’s not that autism and ADHD–sometimes I see them talked about as mental health conditions, and it’s like, well, they are developmental conditions. But I think sometimes that leads them to a papering-over of the fact that there are lots of conditions that tend to actually more frequently co-occur with neurodivergent young people that are definitely mental health conditions, like anxiety, like depression, like OCD. And so, we need to be able to unpack the co-occurrence of those conditions because, again–how media manifests, how do you fully explain everything that’s happening here from a diagnostic perspective? You need to be able to assess: what are all of these possible variables, because you can fix one thing and then not fix, or not address, or at least help a child build coping skills that are related to this other factor.

[Kris Perry]: There’s also this idea in the field around displacement with digital media, which is referring to the idea that media use is displacing other developmentally helpful activities. What’s your take on this, and what’s an understanding of this vis-a-vis neurodivergent kids?

[Dr. Meryl Alper]: It kind of goes back to something I talked about earlier about what alternatives does a child have to be doing something that is not media? So, I think that there’s a kind of privileged assumption about the displacement effect, because you assume that there is something that if parents–especially when thinking about autonomy and control that parents have over their child’s lives–I’ve talked to so many parents for whom they would have loved to have their kid be doing something else that wasn’t media. Media is not displacing that opportunity, that opportunity does not exist. The summer camp, roaming free, unencumbered play. Parents of neurodivergent kids, some of them are literally, like, deathly afraid of their child bolting and eloping and not being safe in terms of a bounded area. So, I think in some ways there’s kind of this like neurotypical privilege of like, “‘Oh, kids and free”–not to say, sorry, that these kids also don’t benefit from the outdoors and from play that is unstructured, but it’s not so easy as just open your door and let your kid just go out there. Because again, there are–and the ways in which, like, race and class intersect with all of that in terms of things like police encounters. So, I think that a lot of this discussion about displacement, it isn’t one, like, grounded empirically, and it also, again, doesn’t necessarily take this full view of what range of choices do families have when really sometimes media–when you think about, again, like really truly like lethal or in terms of risks–the least risky thing for their child to be doing.

[Kris Perry]: What do you think needs to be studied better or more urgently when it comes to neurodivergent youth and media use?

[Dr. Meryl Alper]: This is where you–I realize I end up, kind of, talking about my own–like, they’re things that I want to study, at least, the things that I’m interested in. Because, you know, you don’t want to keep studying the same things or the same dimensions of it. And sometimes–you also don’t want to be led by this new shiny object in a new shiny technology and following that and then chasing after it. So I think there’s a trade-off there. But I think that there are, then, technologies that, because of how they have developed, can certainly intersect with young people’s mental health–neurodivergent young people’s mental health vulnerabilities and behavioral vulnerabilities. And we really need to study some of that impact. So, of those would definitely be as it relates specifically to AI–and there’s been a number of very, I think, sort of public cases that relate to this–but AI companions and thinking about the ethical implications of agents that not only kind of recall everything that you’ve said to them, but are also inherently agreeable. 

And these are technologies that, you know, they aren’t COPPA compliant. They aren’t designed to be used by children, but gosh, aren’t children using them? And I would suspect, honestly, that a lot of them are neurodivergent young people that are the ones who are spending maybe the most time and are maybe potentially drawn into the playful aspect of seeing what an avatar would say, or maybe because they lack actual access to therapy, that their parents are finding somebody who’s the right fit. So, you know, AI might, and these companions might meet a need, but then the risks are extra high for these young people. And so I–that’s, I think, an area that needs to be–like, which young people are more at risk? Thinking about not just how do we retool and how do we add more sort of parent guidance around these technologies, because a lot of these kids aren’t–the parents aren’t in the loop, necessarily. So I think we need to understand that ecosystem and how kids are accessing these platforms, and especially for neurodivergent young people, what those vulnerabilities are. 

Another area of research that I’m just really interested in is around parents’ location tracking of their young people, whether that’s through a smartwatch or whether that’s through the kid’s phone–and that’s, like, a general phenomenon now for young people. But there’s, again, as I mentioned before, neurodivergent kids who maybe, again, are easier–it’s easier to lose track of time or to remember to call somebody to let them know where they’re going or kids with a tendency to elope. I’m interested in what are the benefits and trade-offs that parents are making with this population in terms of being able to monitor, but also like the issues of data collection, issues of sort of privacy, all of that is, I think, important to kind of know. 

And then another one, again, another area of my own work, is looking at the intersection–and this is kind of aging us up to maybe sort of more the teen/adolescent into young adult space. But thinking about how, when it comes to mental health, that there are higher rates among people who are diagnosed with anorexia of having autistic symptoms, symptoms of potentially being autistic. So there is this–and we can think about different ways in which that might be related to things like cognitive rigidity, repetition, but also potentially–and this relates to another eating disorder, ARFID, which is Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder. So, a lot of that has to do with sensory displeasure and things like texture and leading to what maybe traditionally parents sometimes call “picky eating,” but really something that is in terms of limiting restriction and caloric intake. And so here’s an area where the research on mental health, eating disorders–body image is in there somewhere, but it’s relative to these other factors, too. But interested in the role that digital, social media, online spaces offer potentially both for potentially worsening outcomes for these young people, and maybe affecting them differently in ways that have affected neurotypical girls and teens who are also having these experiences, and ways in which also these spaces could be very helpful for them and could provide them with a kind of social support, ideas and ways that maybe also, honestly, like the professional kind of intake or clinical space isn’t really up-to-date with or isn’t, kind of, keeping up with. 

So these are all just sort of different areas where, at least for me, I’m very interested in following. But I think that they’re, they’re certainly, for me, areas where I don’t see there being anything there yet.

[Kris Perry]: I love your passion and enthusiasm and excitement about the field and how many more studies are needed to better understand neurodivergent children. You mentioned needing to study and address technologies that are quickly developing right now, such as algorithms. You have a study from 2023 on TikTok and algorithmically-mediated biographical illumination. Can you explain what that means?

[Dr. Meryl Alper]: Yeah. So, academics sometimes come up with long terms that help us, help the work stand out in terms of publishability, but might not be as immediately interpretable to the public as they could be. 

So I will say, I’ll break down, first, the core chunk of that, which is this idea of “biographical illumination.” So that’s a great concept that comes from sociology and a sociologist named Catherine Tan. And it basically counters the idea–and this is from kind of like the sociology of medicine–counters an idea that, you know, thinking about a diagnosis, if you have ever had one or a loved one has had one, the idea that it can completely erase or alter who you were before, that it’s like a “before and after,” it changes you. And it’s an alternative way of thinking about what receiving a diagnosis, or even coming to an awareness of being potentially somebody who could be diagnosed, that it’s instead of kind of taking away from who you are, it can give you a tool to interpret your past or basically to illuminate your biography where it’s kind of like, “Oh, now this helps put the pieces all together.” And that’s what this concept of biographical illumination is. 

So, for us, I was really interested in thinking about TikTok users, and we had just collected a bunch of data that was about autistic young people on TikTok and just, in general, what were what were the things that they were talking about? And there was a lot of complex discussion about diagnosis. And some of that runs somewhat counter–I guess if there’s another stereotype to add to the list, it’s like, “Oh, now every teen is, based on watching a bunch of TikTok videos, now thinks that they have ADHD” or, “Now thinks that they’re on the autism spectrum.” It’s sort of this, like, hypodermic-needle model of media effects where it’s just en-masse, they open up the TikTok, and now all of a sudden it’s mass hysteria around this. And it’s so much more complicated than that, when diagnosis is something that neurodivergent people, as we found, like, in this work, have a complex relationship to. Some are waiting forever to get one. Some don’t want a formal diagnosis. Some young people suspect they do, but their parents won’t let them or there is sort of a gatekeeping going on. 

So, what we found though is that, because there is so much of this conversation happening on something like TikTok, that that process of coming–of that awareness of maybe understanding one’s past or–and I say past as you’re like a teen, like earlier in your childhood years or maybe this is sort of late adolescence, college students–it’s inseparable from the algorithmic logics of a platform like TikTok. So it isn’t just about you coming to this self-awareness, and maybe being socially in an offline way that you’re around enough people, where you start to think differently, but it’s inseparable from the algorithm and from the content discovery process on these platforms. And this can really be with everything–I’d say with everything, really–for TikTok, it’s like both the best thing and the worst thing, and it’s together in a sandwich. And it’s like, do you take a bite of the sandwich when it includes both the best thing and the worst thing? I don’t have a clear answer on that. But so, it can be some of the best things in terms of finding people who you can relate to, and the worst thing, like spreading misinformation about these conditions online and sometimes doing so in a sort of purposeful manner.

[Kris Perry]: Going back to the worst thing part, do you think neurodiverse kids are more at risk of being exploited by engagement-maximizing algorithms?

[Dr. Meryl Alper]: So, I would caution to say all of them, but I would say that for the ones who already have potential risk factors for problematic media use, yes. Yes. There are some, as I mentioned, prior research that shows that some of them can be more risk-averse, which is very positive, and that’s a kind of safety benefit. But there’s also challenges, especially in terms of the sort of endless scroll, the sort of variations, the tools that are used to sort of have content that is interesting or novel. Not every single post, but, you know, regularly enough, so it’s designed to keep you there longer. So some kids, especially those with ADHD, can experience what’s kind-of colloquially called “time blindness.” So it sort of looks like not knowing how long they’ve been using something for, so they can end up spending more time on an endless social media feed that is algorithmically driven. And there really isn’t–there are certainly now more tools than ever, like whether it’s the screen time, but then there’s always people who say, “Well, I just ignored it.” So that prompt isn’t necessarily strong enough. Maybe it is that an offline timer–so it becomes a battle of understanding self-management. But the way that the platform is designed is just–again, it wasn’t built in a way where, from the get-go, being able to enable executive functioning around how much time you spend there was part of how it was made.

[Kris Perry]:  Yes to all of that, and what do you think needs to change for algorithms to be a more positive force in children’s lives in general and neurodivergent kids in particular?

[Dr. Meryl Alper]: So, again, some of these are things that I think would benefit everybody, not necessarily just neurodivergent young people, but a lot more transparency. It’s the secret sauce, I understand, but greater insights to retool and to modify those algorithms is something that I think is not one-size-fits-all. And so not just something that the algorithm changes and thus it is delivered to you but more of that transparency, more personalization and also then like greater responsiveness from platforms. So there’s lots of experiences where somebody might say, “This content–I don’t want to see this content” or, “I would prefer potentially to, you know, for this window of time–” and it doesn’t feel like that there’s really sometimes, even when it comes to–this is more along the lines of things like harassment and safety–but it doesn’t necessarily feel like the platforms then respond. And so I think that there has to be greater responsiveness. If you ask for users to give their input on something or to say that they want or don’t want something, then you need to actually follow through with it. And so I think sometimes there’s a lack of that follow through happening. 

I think there also needs to be more permission-seeking at periodic intervals. So, you know, if you think about with COPPA, and you think about the ways in which–not that COPPA, it’s not perfect, by any means, sort of law. But how part of that has to do with–and there’s so many, just, obviously so many websites that children are using and that aren’t COPPA compliant. But in an ideal world, there’s this process by which, like, there is permission that is sought at a semi-regular basis about, like, “Can we keep this data? Do you want us to keep using your data for this?” And I think that kind of permission-seeking at periodic intervals is basically like a culture of consent, as a part of re-approaching what algorithms could be in young people’s lives.

[Kris Perry]: You’re referring to the Children’s Online Privacy and Protection Act, which is a many-years-old act that is intended to protect children’s data and their privacy. And it’s actually being discussed at the federal government level around, “Is it up to date? Does it need to be improved?” And what you just laid out, in many ways, are the improvements I think many people are seeking. Could neurodivergent youth have an increased voice in the design of the digital world they find themselves in?

[Dr. Meryl Alper]: I think that we also can’t–yes, and at the same time, it can’t just be assumed that like, “Here, give us your voice, and we don’t need to do anything to make the research process or the input process more accessible for you,” because I think researchers really do. So, you know, researchers, if they’re going to listen, need to listen carefully and listen ethically. Because, certainly, I’ve found in my work that, methodologically, neurodivergent young people are certainly capable of taking part in participatory research that solicits their input in design, but there also really needs to be significant considerations of how to make that research process accessible. 

And for me, also, and I should say, like, as somebody who identifies as neurotypical, that involves collaborating with a bunch of neurodivergent researchers who themselves have their own unique inputs on what the process could be like. So, some Zoom interviews I’ve been doing with neurodivergent kids, so kids on the spectrum, kids with ADHD between the ages of eight and thirteen. So there’s different ways in which, yes, wanting their input, but also knowing that, you know, a kid came home super dysregulated from school and you were supposed to have an interview with them after school. You’re gonna need to reschedule. So that kind of–you need to be flexible in terms of the fact that something can throw a kid off in a way that, or kids might have like, sort of, medical appointments or, sort of, therapy, things that build up their schedule in a way where it requires some researcher, at least temporal flexibility. 

But also different kinds of accommodations. So I would ask kids–I would do an intake of their parents to ask, “Are there any communication needs that I should be aware of or any sort of attention issues when it comes to taking breaks?” And so giving kids also permission, “If you need to take a break at any time, let me know. If you need to find a way to feel physically comfortable during this research process, you can turn off your camera if you needed to.” Like, I’ve had kids where I’ve been in the field and they wanted to talk to me, but they wanted to do it from underneath their coffee table in their living room. That’s okay, we can talk that way. If that’s where your space is and that’s where I’m gonna be able to learn something from you, then what does it matter if you’re looking me in the eye and you’re sitting across from me at your table? It’s not so important to me, necessarily. And some kids also sort of virtually wanted–I asked if they wanted the captions on. For some kids with auditory processing issues, that that might be something that would enable them to have more of a conversation. 

So, again, you can’t just sort of ask and be like, “We asked you,” without making sure that that listening process is respectful and ethical.

[Kris Perry]: What led you to study media use in youth with disabilities and neurodivergence?

[Dr. Meryl Alper]: I, you know, it’s like in full transparency, I am a neurotypical person, and I don’t identify as having a disability or have a close family member with a disability, either. And maybe in some ways, like, I think absolutely in terms of lived experience or perspective-taking, that is a limitation in the work. And so that’s why I do a lot of, I mean, think collaboration, a lot of triangulation of different approaches. Thinking about in any given research team, like what can I add as the neurotypical, maybe even like the token neurotypical person in that research setup? But it also means that I end up not relying really on any one person’s account almost ever, because I am interested in that multiple-perspective view of understanding and getting to a place of real empirical rigor. 

But for me, this work was really started about 15 years ago. And it was after I–when I entered my PhD program at USC, and it was right around when the iPad came out. And before that, my career had been in the children’s, let’s say children’s media industry, but basically it was children’s television industry, because that’s where just so much of the world was existing back pre-2010. So, I was an intern on Sesame Street. I worked as a researcher for a bunch of different shows on Nick Jr. And, for me, it was realizing that once we had this new interface for computers to be more accessible to young children, but also kids with disabilities as well, that there was this real–especially for kids with disabilities–almost this sort cruel optimism happening where everybody was just so super positive about, “Oh wow, this could be, like, a world opener, a leveling of the playing field.” And I was sort of–for me, I was somewhat confused because understanding, “Why are we thinking more critically about what is technology doing, especially when it comes to marginalized populations? Why are we thinking more critically about what it is for these groups, but only exclusively optimistically about this population?” And I realized that that’s because disability was being framed as something purely medical, as like a treatment. And so it was around this idea of like, “Oh, we can use the technology to treat the kid,” or for neurodivergent young people, to basically make them more neurotypical. 

And I–so, for me, it was partly about just sort of reconciling what to me seemed to be a kind of hypocrisy, I guess, in that these kids also merit looking at both thinking about the full range of potential effects and also that a lot of times that kids with disabilities were being treated as just–like, there was research on technology, but it was maybe more focused on rehabilitative technologies or, like, educational or assistive technologies in the classroom, but not the fact that these were also just kids who watched YouTube for fun and that might have had all sorts of other impacts in their life that were affecting their relationships in different kinds of ways. But it was so narrowly in that space of sort of rehabilitative and therapeutic and seeing them sort of as patients and not just as kids. And I just realized that there was so much to be added to and contributed here. 

And certainly, for me–again, as a neurotypical researcher–thinking about how many more sort of voices and many more, especially neurodivergent researchers themselves, might also be able to contribute to this landscape, but it was just non-existent as far as I was concerned at that point.

[Kris Perry]: Well, you just touched on your work in children’s media and PBS Kids. And I’m just wondering, how can children’s media better accommodate neurodivergent children or children with disabilities?

[Dr. Meryl Alper]: Part of that is, I think, the mindset, at least, of something like a place like PBS Kids–which isn’t true of all children’s media–is that it’s supposed to serve the public. It’s supposed to serve all children, regardless of who they are. And that’s not a mindset that necessarily all producers have. So I think children’s media, for one, needs to think more about its public and not just in a “public as consumer” sense, but “public as a child who is developing and has a range of needs to be met and media sometimes is the thing that is most attractive to them to potentially fill those needs.” So, to think maybe more like public media even though it’s a very embattled kind of ground and space right now, and I think that that’s maybe part of the process as well. Because certainly at least in terms of just one aspect of it is media representation, so whether that’s through fictional characters or more documentary-style work. But also thinking about how you don’t just want to have token characters, and thinking about the range and breadth and depth of the experience of neurodivergent young people that can potentially be expressed through media. 

And then especially on the digital side, there’s got to be better tools out there for parents to be able to curate a child’s experience with media, but not just any experience, but a more independent experience of media. Something again that’s come through in interviews that I’ve done with neurodivergent kids is basically, like, “We’ll never learn if you don’t let us do it.” And parents often feel a lot of hesitation about just letting their kid do it. And so I think there just has to be better tools out there for parents, and not just again you put a tool out there and then you expect a parent to know how to do it. If there’s anything that has come out of my work over the past few years, it’s that even the best, most well-intentioned parents, you know, you tell them, “Oh, well, if you want to learn about this then go watch this YouTube video. We made a YouTube video about it.” They might just not find the time to watch that YouTube video. But if you give people a flyer, you give people a piece of paper and it kind of sits on their counter and they end up kind of thumbing through it, they read it. So sometimes this is like pen and paper printouts of things where you actually explain digital, you know, you explain tools to parents, you explain things that are appropriate to them. But it’s certainly, yeah, it is not enough to just put a digital resource out there and then blame people when they don’t use it.

[Kris Perry]: You came out with a study in 2023 about pediatric media guidance for parents of children on the autism spectrum. Is there a lot of variation in what pediatricians are recommending or are there common standards for parents to use?

[Dr. Meryl Alper]: Yeah, so this is a population where “pediatrician” can take on a bunch of different meanings. So you have, like, your general pediatrician. You also might have a developmental behavioral pediatrician. Different pediatricians here. So we’ve really got more than one in the mix. And I think that’s part of the conversation here is–what we found is that it’s really important to think about the broader care team in a neurodivergent child’s life, where sometimes there is almost an over-emphasis, I think–and this is really just sort of a historical, again, holdover of pediatricians being the ones that are sort of centered in some of these conversations about the relationship between health and well-being and young people’s uses of media. But these are young people for whom they might see that behavioral pediatrician or the general pediatrician not-so-regularly, but they are coming in much more frequent contact with other kinds of therapists or other kinds of providers in their life, and those are the people who maybe they even trust a lot more, have a greater rapport about. 

So I think for one, it’s thinking about who are these other individuals who are trusted health advisors in different kinds of ways, and that they also need to be given license to be able to speak expertly about these topics. But we found a lot of times that parents were getting conflicting information. So, one example from my work I remember is a parent saying that their pediatrician–I forget if it was the developmental behavioral or the general one–basically was like keep screens to a minimum. And then their child who also–I don’t know if they ended up being diagnosed with this–but certainly was not consuming enough calorically as they needed to. The feeding therapist that the child had gave the parent the okay to let the kid watch a show while eating meals if it ensured that they were getting enough calories. And so here you have a pediatrician saying, “Well, we know, you know, keep screens to a minimum.” And a feeding specialist saying, “We would like your child not to starve. You would like your child not to starve. Here’s a way that we know, at this moment, is working to make sure your child doesn’t starve. Let’s prioritize your child not starving above these other potential, maybe down the line, effects of screen media use. Because, again, the priority here is this.” So, I think before making recommendations, clinicians really need to be aware of what advice parents have already gotten, as well as being transparent about the evidence base that they are using for their own recommendations. 

I also don’t want to throw pediatricians and clinicians under the bus here, because I think that we’re also at a stage where there are so many things for pediatricians to be staying on top of. What’s the latest in terms of allergies? What’s the latest in terms of vaccinations? There’s just all of these continual updates for them, and so sometimes staying on top of this research isn’t something that’s even possible for them because they’re just trying to field so many other of these important updates, as well.

[Kris Perry]: To wrap things up, there’s so much information out there for parents on so many topics. If you could still distill all of your experiences into a few pieces of advice that you think parents or caregivers should know to help children lead a healthy digital life, what should it be?

[Dr. Meryl Alper]: Okay, so I’ll start with, what are things that we know empirically research-wise are absolutely true? Which is really actually hard to say when people ask for advice. There’s a lot of hedging. And so, there’s always one thing that I say we don’t have to hedge about. We don’t have to hedge about background TV. We don’t need to hedge with, if the TV is on in the background, and nobody’s watching it, turn it off. It doesn’t need to be on, because we know that it has all these negative effects on child development and also on the ways that parents communicate with their kid. So that’s always my, like, “I’m not hedging here at all. This is what I know. Don’t do it.” 

But one I would say is to take as many cues from your child as possible, because it’s really easy to be on autopilot. Kids gain so much when adults authentically listen to them and respond to their needs, and sometimes that can manifest in when a kid is talking about what they’ve consumed with media. Yeah, it’s just so easy to, again, go on autopilot and not be a close listener. 

The next thing I would say is to be transparent about your own desire to seek balance with digital media. Especially adolescents in particular, very quickly pick up on the whole, “do as I say, not as I do” thing. And that kind of transparency, I think, is something where kids learn kind of critical thinking and kind of self-reflective techniques if parents themselves don’t make it seem like they’ve got it all figured out. I mean, figured out to some extent, but enough where it’s being modeled that adults are still learning how to manage these tools, as well. 

Another thing we do know, too, is that when it comes to different parenting styles–so this is Diana Baumrind’s work about parents being–I mean neglectful is kind of one thing–but authoritarian, where, “Everything’s my way or the highway,” or permissive, where it’s, “Do whatever you want.” We know that authoritative parenting–so, warm but firm–is associated with kids who have better self-regulation skills, and that includes with media. So, trying to think about how one sort of aligns their parenting with authoritative parenting is something to think about. You know, it’s okay for–kids need to learn how to make their own choices and some kids, though, might need more or less scaffolding to get there, especially neurodivergent kids. And so, again, they’re going to make some more and some less mistakes along the way, but still being able–if kids don’t ever get to make those own choices, then they’re never going to learn.

[Kris Perry]: Thank you so much, Meryl, for sharing your time and expertise with us today. Your insights into the unique experiences of neurodivergent youth and their digital media use have provided a valuable perspective on how we can better understand, support, and empower them in an increasingly digital world. 

[Dr. Meryl Alper]: Thank you, it’s been a pleasure.

[Kris Perry]: Thank you. Thank you, too, to our listeners for tuning in. For a transcript of this episode, visit childrenandscreens.org where you can find a wealth of resources on parenting, child development, and healthy digital media use. Until next time, keep exploring and learning with us.