Autism and the different Cultures [Sensitive issue]

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Living in a multi-cultural country called Singapore which is composed of 4 main races with a few minorities, setting up a group for teenage and adult Aspies was not an easy job given the discrimination in Singaporean society.

However my group was far from being the one of the first Aspie support group in the country. One thing I realised is that when I go to their meetings and gatherings; most of them are Chinese and Christians. There are very few people of other religious beliefs, and races who are willign to speak up for autism/ADHD or go to seek professional help from professional psychologists...

I believe some people see Autism in many different ways and it varies from culture to culture.
How is Autism viewed by different cultures, races and country?

Ok so no one is interested to discuss this?

Does anyone here know enough to discuss this meaningfully. I find the question rather interesting but I do not have the background or the skill to weigh in on it or bring an opinion to it.

My pure hunch guess is that Auties and Aspies have always existed in in all human societies in some small numbers.

ruveyn

Maybe because wrongplanet is mostly western dominated or am I wrong? Anyway this topic is a sensitive one and one would do justice to discuss it intelligently.

Since Wrongplanet has been helping Aspies and Auties out in a way since its founding, I think it would be great if it could extend its help to overseas Aspies who have set up support groups or forums delicated to their own countries with differing racial mixes and prevalent attitudes.

This is made more troubling given the fact that each race and culture sees autism in a very different way and it will differ even more when we talk about country to country where some countries do not respect the rights of Aspies.

I feel that there are more similarities between different races, than there exist differences. Especially more so for Aspies, for we face similar exclusion from our society.

I feel the same. It seems like a compelling subject, and I'd love to hear people's thoughts on it, but I haven't had close enough contact with other cultures to be able to speak about their attitudes toward autism.

Like you said, Tales, this board is very western dominated. Perhaps if you went into detail about how things are for an autistic person in Singapore we'd have something to compare western attitudes to.

Agree with both of the above posts.

Its an interesting topic, but (despite being an anthropology major) I dont know other cultures enough to wiegh in.


Singaporians who are both Chinese, and Christian, are probably both more affluent and a little more western influenced than are say- the muslim Malay part of the population.

So they are the one who are aware of autism, and are the ones who would seek help for their own, and other folks' autism. Certain groups would be more aware of western psychological terms than others due to both social class and ethnicity.

That much I could speculate about.

But every group in Singapore ( and in the world) probably has autistic and aspie individuals.

The book Unstrange Minds by Roy Grinker addresses this subject.

Here a couple reviews:

http://neurodiversity.com/weblog/article/123/

http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2006/1 ... nge-minds/

Grinker explores the differences between how autism is percieved in the U.S,, South Korea, parts of Africa and parts of India. I think he also talks briefly about the UK and parts of Europe.

I read this book and decided that the worst place to be diagnosed with autism was in South Korea, because it is perceived as proof that the entire family is hopelessly damaged and shameful. (It seemed pretty harsh. Anybody here from South Korea? Is this accurate?)

The best place would be in parts of India, where it is perceived as being in touch with divine spirits.

The book is a good cross-cultural look at perceptions of autism around the world. Unsurprisingly, the way a culture percieves it will influence for better or worse how the autistic person is treated by others and also very strongly influences how family members treat the autistic person.

If they were, they'd be pretty quiet about it, right?

Yes. According to the book, the families would be very quiet about it. They would hide the diagnosis as much as possible and also hide the child as much as possible.

Before I read this book and when my (autistic) daughter was a little girl, she made friends with a fellow autistic girl whose family had recently moved here (the US) from South Korea. At my daughter's request, I invited this girl over to play at our house. Her parents were very reluctant to accept. I convinced them that it would be fine. She came to visit and her and my daughter seemed to enjoy this. When the visit was over, her parents apologized profusely for her behaviour. The odd thing was, I didn't think anything had gone wrong. She and my daughter played near each other, if not precisely with each other, and both seemed to be happy in each others' company. I didn't see a problem.

After their profuse apology (even though I didn't percieve anything had gone wrong and there was nothing to apologize for) they said that their daughter had never visited anybody else's house before. They were ashamed that she hadn't played with my daughter "properly" . In my perception, they had played near each other with apparent happiness and good will and that was what I was hoping for. They were both autistic. I wasn't expecting them to play like two neurotypical girls and have a tea party. But her parents were ashamed and apologetic and apparently this was the first time this girl had even visited non-family. I was baffled.

Then I read this book and it all made sense in a sad way.

edited to add, upon proofreading my post I realized that you were making a joke that any poster who is autistic and from South Korea would not necessarily be willing to make a post about it. I am a bit slow.