Rain man, a famous movie character,
is an autistic savant who has autism, shows little emotional expression and
avoids eye contact, does not like changes and follows restrict routines, but
also has superb recall and extreme skills in mathematics with little
understanding of the subject matter or currency.
Rain Man has reduced the misconceptions about autism and
improved public awareness of the failure of many agencies to accommodate people
with autism and make use of the abilities they do have, regardless of whether
they are savant skills. Today, the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has become a
common disease all over the world. However, people in different countries and
cultures still has different views about autism.
ASD in South
Korean
The purpose of the article “Korean Culture and Autism
Spectrum Disorders” is to explore the potential influences of Korean culture on
ASD identification, diagnosis, assessment and treatment. Korean attitudes
towards ASD and child education and development style are factors that can
affect the service provide by the clinic and other social service.
In South Korean, autism is still an uncommon disease. Some
autistic children may be diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder (RAD),
caused by a mother’s absence of attachment to their children. As Korean become one
of the largest economies in the world, modern parents are considered no longer know how
to raise children properly, so that children will be lack of love. Unlike
autism RAD is treatable and not a genetic condition. And they attribute
children’s disabilities to poor prenatal practices which may negatively affect
the health and intelligence of babies. Thus, it seems that mothers should be
responsible for “RAD” in Korean. However, some other authors argued that
mothers of children autism should receive appropriate mental health care,
because they suppress emotion and handle stress more than do women in other
countries.
The lack of a formal
support system for disability children is also a problem. Child psychiatry in
Korea is relatively young, there are only a few centers in Korea that provide
assessment, treatment and service for children with ASD, but some websites of
several academic and professional organizations provide information and guidance
for parents to help them take care of their autistic children.
Korean schools emphasize structure and routine within the
classroom, with few alternations in daily schedules, which suit some high
functioning ASD children. However, there is also a hypothesis that Korean
teaching customs, such as emphasizing the teacher’s authority, extrinsic
motivation, completion of worksheets, and clear separation of playtime and work
time, negatively influence the development of children’s social skills.
ASD in Nigeria
Comorbidity of ASD
and intellectual disability has been established to be common in Africa. According
to Bakare et al, the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) among
Nigerian children with intellectual disability has been on the increase during recent
three decades. There is variation in prevalence of ASD across cultures and
regions.
Unlike Korea, autism
is a common disease in Nigeria, and had been documented to occur co morbidly
with intellectual disability. However, in Korea, the majority of children with
autism had average or above average IQs, and 12% had superior IQs. There are
more clinics and care centers that providing special education and modification
to children with disabilities in Nigeria than in Korea.
The large-scale
epidemiological studies of ASD are needed in both these two countries.
