Off-campus WSU users: To download campus access dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your WSU access ID and password, then click the "Off-campus Download" button below.
Non-WSU users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this dissertation through interlibrary loan.
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.
Recommended Citation
Yu, Jinhan, "Autism Spectrum Disorder Identification In China" (2022). Wayne State University Dissertations. 3708.
https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_dissertations/3708