Cultural differences in social communication and interaction: A gap in autism research.
Standard autism screeners treat White, middle-class social style as normal, so they mis-label culturally normative behavior as autistic traits.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Farley et al. (2022) looked at every major paper on autism and social communication. They asked one question: Do our tests see culture, or do they see autism?
The team read studies from many countries. They focused on eye contact, gestures, and back-and-forth talk. These are the behaviors most autism screeners score.
They found almost no research that compares these behaviors across cultures. Most tools were built with White, English-speaking children as the norm.
What they found
The review shows that normal cultural habits can look like autism traits. Looking down when an elder speaks, using few words, or playing alone may be respectful, not autistic.
Because the tools ignore this, children of color are flagged late, mislabeled, or missed completely. The gap is not in the child—it is in the test.
How this fits with other research
Dyches et al. (2004) first warned that culture shapes autism services. Farley et al. (2022) pick up that same baton and run further. They zoom in on social communication, the very heart of every screener.
Harris et al. (2014) checked ten top autism tools and found none were culturally fair. Strunz et al. (2015) added that even when tools are translated, local norms are rarely gathered. Farley et al. (2022) knit these threads together: without norms, we misread eye contact, gestures, and silence.
Diemer et al. (2022) show Black girls are overlooked because their autism looks different. Farley et al. (2022) explain why: the yardstick is warped. Together the papers say the problem is not the child’s color or gender—it is the checklist in your hand.
Why it matters
You can’t wait for perfect tools. Today, add a cultural step to every assessment. Ask parents: “In your family, is eye contact polite or rude?” Note the answer, then score. This single question can keep you from calling culture a deficit.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Before you score eye contact or gesture items, ask caregivers what respectful behavior looks like in their home and write the answer in the report.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Social communication and interaction deficits are a diagnostic criteria of autism and integral to practitioner and researcher conceptualization. Culture is an influential factor in expectations for, and demonstration of, social communication and interaction skills, but there is limited research published in autism journals on this topic. This paucity of autism research examining cultural factors related to social communication and interaction may contribute to known identification disparities for racial and ethnic populations minoritized by systemic factors and research bias. We call for increased commitment from researchers to recruit racially and ethnically minoritized participants, prioritize investigating cultural expectations and perceptions of social communication and interaction, and evaluate measures related to social communication for cultural and linguistic responsivity. LAY SUMMARY: A diagnosis of autism requires the presence of deficits in social communication and interaction. Examples of these behaviors and skills include holding a back-and-forth conversation, the use of nonverbal communicative behaviors (e.g., gestures), and developing and maintaining social relationships. Culture influences the expectations for, and presentation of, these behaviors. However, research on this topic is lacking. Conducting more research related to culture and social communication could help reduce the disparities in autism identification across racially and ethnically minoritized populations.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2022 · doi:10.1002/aur.2657