Les représentations culturelles de l’enfant autiste à Douala 5em : Une analyse psycho-anthropologique du trouble

Abstract

In Cameroon, cultural representations on autistic children arouse interest not only on research work in universities but also for the autistic child and his familiar environment.  For the fact that this cultural representations isolate, reject and condemn the child to death and at the same time guilt to the family structure of the subject problem. In this work, we are interested in the autistics children at the socialization institution or not, ages of 15 or more at the quarters of Logpong and Boanamoussadi in Douala.  This cultural representation approach justifies the fact that autistic children can be made object of analysis of this trouble. We carried out census in these two localities and identified 13 autistic children in which their family think and lived with the handicap of their children as a cultural condemnation pronounced to them by their ancestors. Never the less the problem here is that of autistic child being the fruit of bad luck and shame. 

Our objective is to show that an autistic child is not a parental fruit of punishment or however carry the germs of parental condemnation. In order to do this work well, we bring in the work of Roge (2003) on autism, « Clinic and Cultur »., Brtark and Rutter (1999) on the progress of autistic child, Chaffi Welakoue (2018) on « Autism and inclusive education; Attitude and resistance of a process in inclusive schools; the case of Cameroon » and Degorge (2010) on   «  children said to be witches on the streets of Congo ». as a framework theory of the study, on the other hand, we summon the theory of the soul of autism, behavioral theories and  autism neurological also anthropological theories of cultural condemnation  and social representation of Serge Moscovici.  In terms of diagnosis, it emerges as all the psycho-medical and educational investigations carried out by specialists in the field for the purpose of detecting the disorder. The autistic child, for some sorcerer, nascent monster and a factor of shame and curses for parents and family and for others a child between disability and mental illness. It emerges that the appearance of an autistic child in the family instills in his parents a psycho-emotional instability with more or less successful support commitments. The results we obtained shows that; autism is a pathology of bad luck, of shame and of which the autistic child inherit from birth due to parental witchcraft transgression, an autistic child is thus a vampire, a bad spirit that makes the parents to suffer and the family as such he/she merit to die or disappear.