Could the environment play a role in children developing autism?
A newly released study found children in California, Oregon and Washington are more likely to develop autism if they lived in counties with higher levels of annual rainfall when they were 3 or younger, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.
The study said bad weather could lead to more TV and video viewing, which in very young children have been linked to language-development problems. It also suggested that staying indoors could cause a deficit of vitamin D, the "sunshine vitamin," increasingly found to play a role in health.
The study was published in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
The study did stress that a link between autism rain has not been clinically proven and further testing is needed.