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Access Type

WSU Access

Date of Award

January 2022

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Department

Communication Sciences and Disorders

First Advisor

Natalia Rakhlin

Second Advisor

Derek Daniels

Abstract

ASD is recognized as a neurodevelopmental disorder in 80 countries (Matson, 2011). The Western diagnostic framework is accepted internationally as Gold Standard (via ICD 11) with the implication that ASD is culturally invariant. Little research investigates cultural considerations of ASD diagnosis, despite known cultural influences on social interaction/communication, which impact specific social-communicative behaviors learned by children, social expectations at different ages, and the types of behaviors perceived as (ab)normal by clinicians in different cultures.By adopting Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ-Child), this dissertation highlights challenges in the identification of ASD in the Chinese population and concludes that AQ-Child is an adequate screening instrument for ASD, with items relating to restricted interests and repetitive behaviors. However, the culturally discriminatory elements require improvement. For example, things pertaining to academic achievement need to be eliminated or adjusted. Based on the settings, both teachers and parents of children with autism are experts at identifying autistic behaviors. Additionally, it implies that while some autistic characteristics are universal, others are individual and should be addressed individually. Sentence final particles in Mandarin Chinese serve both linguistic and pragmatic purposes, conveying emotions and syntactic information during conversation. Therefore, the dissertation suggests that SFPs might be employed as a cultural neutral identification marker and could also be created as an intervention tool to improve children with autism's skill of emotion identification and application.

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