Autism and immegrents

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Why autism seems to cluster in some immigrant groups Cultural barriers lead clinicians to misdiagnose or miss children with autism in immigrant communities.

well.......that's got something to do with the TOM of the general population and their representative medical socio-practicers ?

It's got to do with the fact that a lot of people don't have much of a concept of how much culture influences personality.

Once thing I recognize from the article is this 'peekaboo' thing. It always puzzled me that this ought to be part of an autism screening, and also the thing about eye contact. Where I live, some adults play peekaboo with kids, but I can't recall it ever beeing very usual, certainly not when I was little. And lots of people here avoid eye contact without being autistic. Generally, we are not a culture that practice extensive eye contact. Not like Americans.

One thing I find interesting is how in the US there are all these people with immigrant backgrounds, yet very little awareness of how different these cultures are. Every American has the opportunity to talk with people who are very different from themselves, but they don't seem to grab the opportunity. I understand why it's the immigrants who have to adjust, and also that there are too many cultures to learn about.

The worrisome thing is that the US is such a large and influential country that they manage to convince themselves that their cultural interpretations are somehow universal. When this starts influencing foreign policy it starts getting scary. George W. Bush's many miscalculations spring to mind.

I hope autism research won't be as misguided as US foreign policy.