That’s autism right there, or is it?

Autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized primarily by impaired speech, communication skills and interests, and repetitive, stereotyped behaviors. It is mostly found in young children and infants, although it is also possible for the disorder to go undiagnosed until later in a person’s adulthood. The cause of autism is still unclear, but it is believed to be a combination of both genetics (most likely interaction among multiple genes), and prenatal conditions. There are a variety of interventions, most of which involve applied behavioral analysis and use of reward to encourage prosocial behaviors.

One of the most prominent characteristics of autism, at least in the Western world, is lack of eye contact. What first tips the parent off that something might be wrong with a child is probably the lack of interest the child displays in looking into the parent’s eyes. In normal social situations, a person who talks only to our shoulders is likely to be considered odd. As a result, a lot of childhood interventions target eye contact as an important part of developing an acceptable social behavior.

However, showing politeness by maintaining eye contact is not a universal phenomenon. In fact, there are a lot of places where eye contact, especially when talking to an elderly, is considered rude. A child is taught from a very young age not to look others in the eye while having a conversation.

Naturally, you can imagine a western psychologist being very confused when dealing with children from another culture and are raised with a completely different set of social rules. And eye contact is only a part of the picture: children with autism are likely to have ill defined personal space (such as too much or too little bodily contact), but as we all know, the “ideal degree” of personal space varies from culture to culture. Children with autism may have trouble starting conversation with strangers, while people from some cultures do not talk to anyone unless introduced to by a friend. There are more examples, but you get the idea.

So what is the lesson here? Well, obviously it is very difficult to diagnose autism in other cultures while the vast majority of studies and models are based on western samples. What’s more, using the same intervention programs in different cultures can also be problematic, while a healthy, social western child can be easily considered ill mannered or even behaviorally challenged by another culture. In the cosmopolitan society that we live in today, it has been more and more important for people to think cross culturally about, well, just about everything.

 

Some examples of cross cultural attempts at understanding autism:

Egyptian Autism Society

Dubai Autism Center

New England Center for Children – Abu Dhabi

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