ASDs outside of North America

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Hey, I was just in China for two weeks, and I was wondering if anyone else ever noticed this.

My school took me to an orphanage in very rural China, and I was curious as to whether I'd see any children on the spectrum. I payed pretty close attention, since I didn't have much else to do, since I don't really speak the language.

All the children there were of an age where traits would have shown up. I'd judge there was a much higher than usual level of physical problems, I'd estimate there were at least 70-120 kids, probably more. Two appeared to have birth defects, two were in wheelchairs, and one was albino, but I didn't see any aspies/auties at all (or other children with obvious mental differences/problems/whatever).

Mostly, I just thought this was an interesting observation, and was curious as to whether you all thought it was cultural or genetic? (The orphanage had classes, I wouldn't be too surprised if any kids with mental differences/problems were kept in their rooms or whatever instead)

Discuss?

You say you don't really speak the language--maybe you'd notice any disorders if you knew what the children were talking about? Mental disorders will not be as obvious as physical ones, and you might not notice them even if you can understand their speech.

I assume there will be less people diagnosed with autism in China, of course. If autism is mostly genetic that shouldn't reflect a difference in the rate though.

You're also dealing with a completely different culture. I read the results of a study (I think it may have been in Highly Sensitive People) that compared the experience of shyness between Canadian and Chinese students in two schools. The biggest obstacle that came up for the researchers was that there was no term for a "shy" child in Chinese that had the same negative connotations that the term has in English. While shyness in English suggests a defect of some sort, a "shy" child in Chinese was simply a "good" child. In another book ( I think the title was Living with Asperger's, but I'm not sure of that,) there was an anecdote about Chinese-American parents removing their AS daughter from her Chinese after-school program in favor of a program that would provide therapy for her social issues. The teachers couldn't understand the problem, since a quiet child who just wanted to read was their ideal student. In a place where the cultural norm is so completely different, ASDs may show up in quite different ways, or may not be visible to the casual observer at a school.

That is a good point, I was mostly looking at the body language of the children, etc. Nonverbal things.

I can't remember exactly where, but I'm pretty sure that we already had the discussion about different cultures valuing different traits, and came to the conclusion that a kid on the spectrum in China will still act different from his/her peers.

I'd assume almost nobody gets diagnosed with autism in the part of China where I was. This was very rural (pretty much everybody in that whole part of the country is a rice farmer) and I doubt anyone could even know where to go for something like that.

I mostly focused on looking at their body language in comparison to the others. There were about ten of us there, so I looked a lot at how the kids were interacting with my classmates (when we brought out paper and pencils, what did they draw, when they were playing group activities, how involved were they, etc) (in case anybody was wondering, every single child drew a picture of them and a farm).

This is just a thought, but I've been living in Asia for a few years now China/Korea. It is only since moving here that I've become aware of my AS, and thus starting thinking about such things. One thing I think that might affect this is the way their social culture works. I think there are a lot less 'unwritten' rules in Chinese culture (I may be wrong), but it is my experience that Chinese people will tell you directly if you do something wrong (but that could just be because I'm a foreigner). But if this is right, then Chinese people with AS will be less obvious from a casual observance, because they will know how to act in social situations, because they have been clearly told how to act.

That's a very interesting point. It really is hard to differentiate between cultural differences and personal differences. I hadn't noticed much of that where I'm living, but then again, I mostly stay in the expat community in Hong Kong, which has many more British influence, anyways.

One has to wonder how good are you at diagnosing autism/aspergers in a short time. That being said, the autism i research is inherited so it is likely that it hasn't spread evenly to all races/countries yet.

I think this was my main point. I was wondering if anyone else thought that this was true.