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The Intersection of Systemic, Child, and Evaluation Factors in the Prediction of Autism Special Education Eligibility; Examining the Role of Race and Ethnicity

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Abstract

Though there is evidence autism identification has been inequitable for populations who are culturally and linguistically minoritized, there is limited research that explains the issue of disproportionality and factors contributing to its occurrence, especially within an educational setting. To explore contributors to racial/ethnic disparities in autism special education eligibility, the current investigation evaluated child and evaluation characteristics as they relate to the absence of autism eligibility. Data were obtained from the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network Study and included children with behavioral characteristics consistent with autism and educational evaluation records. Despite documented characteristics consistent with autism, only 72% of the sample received educational services under autism eligibility. To characterize children without autism eligibility, hierarchical logistic regression was used to evaluate factors documented in evaluation records predicting the absence of autism eligibility. Factors influencing autism eligibility included behavioral characteristics documented, evaluation components completed, intellectual ability, and clinical diagnoses present. There was no unique contribution of race/ethnicity in predicting the absence of autism eligibility when accounting for these previous predictors, but many of these predictors differed by racial/ethnic group. Disproportionality in autism may be the manifestation of inequitable evaluation experiences, including experiencing less comprehensive evaluations, and not receiving an autism specific assessment. Though race/ethnicity did not uniquely contribute to the absence of autism eligibility above and beyond those combined factors, it is important to evaluate and reduce inequities experienced within the autism identification process for populations who are culturally and linguistically minoritized.

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Notes

  1. ‘Autism’ is used in place of ‘ASD’ or ‘autism spectrum disorder’ throughout this paper. Though the medical field refers to the diagnosis as ‘ASD’, the federal Department of Education refers to the special education eligibility category as ‘autism’. Given the focus on special education eligibility, ‘autism’ is used for consistency, except when discussing non-autism diagnoses, as these were only those documented in medical settings, not alternate special education eligibilities.

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The authors did not receive support from any organization for the submitted work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Research, Assessment, & Measurement, Curriculum Associates, North Billerica, MA, USA

    Kelsey Young

  2. School of Education & Human Development, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, CO, USA

    Bryn Harris

  3. Institute on Community Integration, University of Minnesota; Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Jennifer Hall-Lande

  4. Department of Pediatrics, University of Minnesota; Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Amy Esler

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  1. Kelsey Young
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  2. Bryn Harris
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  3. Jennifer Hall-Lande
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  4. Amy Esler
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Kelsey Young, Bryn Harris, and Amy Esler. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Kelsey Young and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Kelsey Young.

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Approval was obtained from the human research ethics committee of the University of Minnesota; Twin Cities. The procedures used in this study adhere to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki.

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Young, K., Harris, B., Hall-Lande, J. et al. The Intersection of Systemic, Child, and Evaluation Factors in the Prediction of Autism Special Education Eligibility; Examining the Role of Race and Ethnicity. J Autism Dev Disord (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-023-06059-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-023-06059-7

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