Maternal nationality and developmental delays in young children: Analysis of the data from the national registry in Taiwan.

The team pulled every birth record in Taiwan from 2009-2013. They asked one question: Do kids of immigrant moms get flagged for developmental delays more or less often?

Children were under six. A delay was counted if the child showed up in Taiwan’s national disability registry.

Kids with immigrant mothers were 32-a large share less likely to be listed with a delay. The gap stayed big across all five years.

In plain numbers, native-born moms had the higher registry rate, not the immigrant group.

Hwang et al. (2013) used the same Taiwan registry and also found group differences, but they tied autism risk to preterm birth, not mom’s origin.

Boxum et al. (2018) looked at bilingual toddlers with delays and saw no language harm from two languages. That study and this one both remind us: minority language background itself is not a delay risk.

Jashar et al. (2019) showed minority parents felt slightly less heard during autism checks. Together these papers hint that immigrant families may be under-represented in registries for both cultural and service-access reasons, not because their kids have fewer needs.

If you screen a Taiwanese immigrant family, don’t assume lower risk. The child may simply be outside the referral net. Use direct assessment plus parent interview, and provide materials in the home language. A BCBA can close the gap by actively inviting immigrant parents to share concerns and explaining how to access early-intervention services.