Olga Solomon, Ph.D.Assistant Professor
Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy
University of Southern California
Email: olgasolo@usc.edu
Phone: (323) 442-2154
Olga Solomon is an applied linguist by training (Ph.D., UCLA, 2001) and her research offers an ethnographically informed perspective on the everyday lives of children and teens with autism and their families. She has been conducting interdisciplinary research on autism since 1997 and besides her primary training in applied linguistics her work has been motivated by her background in clinical psychology, communication disorders and electrical engineering.
Olga Solomon is Principal Investigator on a NIH/NIMH-funded project ‘Autism in Urban Context: Linking Heterogeneity with Health and Service Disparities' that examines health and service disparities in Autism Spectrum Disorders diagnoses of African American children living in Los Angeles. Since joining the Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy at the University of Southern California in 2005 she has been part of an interdisciplinary research team on an NIH-funded longitudinal ethnographic research project that involves African American children with special health care needs, their families and the practitioners who serve them. Her areas of interest are: translational research on health disparities and family life; family perspectives on developmental disability and chronic illness; autism and diversity; organization and design of educational environments and family innovation; and autism, innovative technology and animal assisted therapy.
Olga has served as a Steering Committee member on the Innovative Technology for Autism Initiative (ITA) since 2002. She was the editor with linguistic anthropologist Elinor Ochs of a special issue on autism of the journal Discourse Studies (2004), and with occupational scientist Nancy Bagatell of a special issue on autism of the journal Ethos.
Publications
Book Chapters
Solomon, O. (in press) Body in autism: A view from social interaction. In V. Ramanathan and P. McPherron (Eds.) Language, Bodies, and Health. New York: De Gruyter Mouton
Ochs, E., & Solomon, O. (2005). Practical logic and autism. In C. Casey & R. Edgerton (Eds.), A companion to psychological anthropology: Modernity and psychocultural change. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Journal Articles
Solomon, O. (in press) Sense and the Senses: Anthropology and the Study of Autism. Annual Review of Anthropology
Solomon, O., & Bagatell, N. (2010). Autism: Rethinking the possibilities. Ethos, 38(1), 1-7.
Ochs, E., & Solomon, O. (2010). Autistic sociality. Ethos, 38(1), 69-92.
Solomon, O. (2010). What a dog can do: Children with autism and therapy dogs in social interaction. Ethos, 38(1), 143-166.
Solomon, O. (2008). Language, autism, and childhood: An ethnographic perspective. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 28, 150-169.
Ochs, E., Solomon, O., & Sterponi, L. (2005). Limitations and transformations of habitus in child-directed communication. Discourse Studies, 7(4-5), 547 - 583.
Solomon, O. (2004). Narrative introductions: Discourse competence of children with autistic spectrum disorders. Discourse Studies, 6(2), 253–276.
Ochs, E., Kremer-Sadlik, T., Sirota, K. G., & Solomon, O. (2004). Autism and the social world: An anthropological perspective. Discourse Studies, 6(2), 147-183.
Ochs, E., Kremer-Sadlik, T., Solomon, O., & Sirota, K. G. (2001). Inclusion as social practice: Views of children with autism. Social Development, 10(3), 399-419.
