Experiences of Parents of Emergent Bilingual Children Facing Autism Inquiry

Chen, Yao

Experiences of Parents of Emergent Bilingual Children Facing Autism Inquiry

dc.contributor.advisor	Guo, Shibao
dc.contributor.author	Chen, Yao
dc.contributor.committeemember	Roy, Sylvie
dc.contributor.committeemember	Zhao, Xu
dc.date	2024-06
dc.date.accessioned	2024-05-10T16:41:05Z
dc.date.available	2024-05-10T16:41:05Z
dc.date.issued	2024-05-07
dc.description.abstract	Parents are unique experts on their children and their developmental environment. This is especially the case of emergent bilingual children’s parents, who are promising untapped sources of knowledge and wisdom about their children’s language learning, social communication, and development. Emergent bilingual children from immigrant families are in the process of becoming bilinguals when taking the language assessment (Garcia, 2009). The immigrant parents co-construct their children’s bilingual and bicultural experiences. Social communication/interaction (SC/I) deficits are the main diagnostic criteria of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Parents’ perspectives on their children’s SC/I, including language skills, were rarely considered in the ASD evaluation. Informed by sociocultural theory (Vygotsky,1993), translanguaging (Garcia, 2009), and the middle-range theory (Merton, 1968), this research explores how immigrant parents describe their emergent bilingual children’s diagnosis of ASD. Data for the study were collected through semi-structured interviews and artifacts with 12 immigrant parents of 13 emergent bilingual children, documenting the nature and extent of immigrant children’s social communication and development, and interaction with the environment. Thematic and moment analysis (Wei, 2011) were used for data analysis. Results of the study revealed that, from the parents’ perspectives, the current ASD assessment tools and procedures marginalized emergent bilingual children. First, this study showed that the assessors in autism diagnosis often failed to recognize emergent bilingual children’s translanguaging practices and other social communication development features. Secondly, the cultural bias and expected SC/I development milestones in ASD assessment tools disadvantaged emergent bilingual children. Thirdly, the current ASD diagnosis often overlooks immigrant parent knowledge. The study suggested that immigrant parent knowledge could expand bilingual children’s SC/I evaluation. It hopes to inspire academics and communities to the interpretive paradigm (Vasilachis de Gialdino, 2009) on SC/I evaluation of emergent bilingual children in the ASD diagnostic process.
dc.identifier.citation	Chen, Y. (2024). Experiences of parents of emergent bilingual children facing autism inquiry (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/1880/118722
dc.identifier.uri	https://doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/43565
dc.language.iso	en
dc.publisher.faculty	Graduate Studies
dc.publisher.institution	University of Calgary
dc.rights	University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.
dc.subject	Autism Spectrum Disorder
dc.subject	ASD diagnosis
dc.subject	emergent bilingual children
dc.subject	immigrant parent knowledge
dc.subject	social communication/interaction
dc.subject	environment
dc.subject	deviant behaviour
dc.subject.classification	Education--Bilingual and Multicultural
dc.subject.classification	Educational Psychology
dc.subject.classification	Linguistics
dc.subject.classification	Anthropology--Cultural
dc.title	Experiences of Parents of Emergent Bilingual Children Facing Autism Inquiry
dc.type	doctoral thesis
thesis.degree.discipline	Education Graduate Program – Educational Research
thesis.degree.grantor	University of Calgary
thesis.degree.name	Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
ucalgary.thesis.accesssetbystudent	I do not require a thesis withhold – my thesis will have open access and can be viewed and downloaded publicly as soon as possible.