Identifying Autism Symptoms using Autism Spectrum Quotient (ASQ) A survey amongst Universiti Sains Malaysia Students

Abstract

The advancement of ICT technology especially in detecting rare diseases has becomingly common in today's technology. One of the issues that arise is how this technology could help human to identify Autism characters? Little research has being made to educate society how to recognize this symptom and most of the past research was concentrated only for autistic child and none of the outcomes are dedicated for the society to understand. This study investigates the levels of autism symptoms amongst target respondents in Universiti Sains Malaysia by using Autism Spectrum Quotient (ASQ). This instruments is a questionnaire published in 2001 by Simon Baron-Cohen and it consists of fifty questions and it aims is to investigate whether adults of average intelligence have symptoms of autism or one of the other autism spectrum conditions. A quantitative survey method through the distribution of questionnaire and online survey form has being applied. The finding shows that significance levels of autism symptoms amongst respondents are rising and become silently increased. The findings from this study will help researcher to analyze and propose suitable method in identifying Autistic behavioral symptoms through engaging multimedia learning environment. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of The Association Science Education and Technology