Korean Immigrant Mothers and the Journey to Autism Diagnosis and Services for Their Child in the United States.
Hyeyoung Kim, Sohyun An Kim, Han Lee and 1 others
PMID 37874474WHAT IT FOUND
Mothers described autism as illness or severe disability, bilingualism delaying concern, and US-Korea system gaps stalling services; family and clinician support helped them act.
Key findings
01Five factors shaped the mothers' diagnostic and service journey: cultural beliefs, language barriers, complex emotions, immigration and system navigation, and facilitators.
02Not speaking English limited access to service information, and clinicians gave mixed advice about bilingualism.
03Families who lacked knowledge about US system challenges faced trial and error and delayed support.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only 11 mothers were interviewed, so the themes describe this small group and cannot be generalized to all Korean American immigrant families. Recruitment used a support group and snowball sampling, and six participants had personal connections with the first author, who is also a Korean immigrant mother and a member of that support group. The study was a secondary analysis of interviews from an earlier project, so questions specific to this analysis may not have been asked. Mothers were interviewed at least two and at most eight years after diagnosis, so accounts relied on memory. Participants had high educational attainment, which may not represent broader Korean immigrant families. Fathers and other family members were not interviewed, so their perspectives and roles were only reported through the mothers.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that switching to English-only at home improves autism services or language outcomes. The study reports mothers' experiences and mixed clinician advice, not tested interventions or child outcomes.