24155
Exploring Differences in Autism Spectrum Disorder Symptomology By Racial/Ethnic and Socio-Economic Status
Despite the identification of effective treatments, parents face many barriers obtaining recommended services for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; Benevides, Carretta, & Lane, 2016; Mandell et al., 2010). Minority and economically disadvantaged groups may experience particular difficulties receiving services. Studies examining disparities find that children from ethnic and racial minorities are diagnosed with ASD later than their White peers (Mandell et al., 2009), and suggest that Hispanic children with milder forms of ASD may be under-diagnosed (Chaidez, Hansen, & Hertz-Picciotto, 2012; Jo et al., 2015). Children living in higher socioeconomic status (SES) families are diagnosed earlier than those in lower SES families (Fountain, King, & Bearman, 2011). Minority children also begin receiving ASD specific services later than White peers (Magaña & Smith, 2013; Mandell et al., 2009) and Latino children receive fewer ASD specific services (Magaña et al., 2013).
Previous data were typically drawn from large national or statewide datasets designed to analyze the general degree of disparity across racial/ethnic and SES groups. This project seeks to limit some sources of variability by examining differences in characteristics of students served under the autism educational category in Southern California. Limiting the sample to one region likely removes discrepancies in diagnostic and treatment service quality and availability across regions and states that may be contributing to disparities identified in larger examinations.
Objectives:
To examine the symptomology of a diverse sample of public school students served under the educational category of autism to examine possible differences related to race/ethnicity or maternal education in (1) intellectual functioning, (2) ASD symptom severity, and (3) adaptive behavior.
Methods:
Participants included 279 students served under the autism educational category, living in a large, ethnically diverse area. Standardized measures of student cognitive level, ASD symptoms, and adaptive behavior were collected. Maternal education level and student race/ethnicity was collected via a demographics survey completed by parents. One-way analyses of variance (ANOVA) tests assessed mean differences observed on all measures across maternal education and student race/ethnicity. A factorial two-way ANOVA tested the interaction between maternal education and student ethnicity. Appropriate post-hoc analyses were conducted using Tukey’s Honest Significant Difference method.
Results:
Results demonstrated a significant relation for maternal education level with both cognitive scores and ASD severity. Students from lower educated mothers had lower cognitive scores and more severe autism symptoms than those from higher educated mothers. A significant interaction between maternal education level and race/ethnicity on cognitive scores indicated that higher maternal education levels were associated with higher cognitive scores for White and Non-Hispanic/Latino-Other students compared to Hispanic or Latino students.
Conclusions:
These findings suggest a potential disparity in the identification of students with ASD due to maternal education level, with children from lower resource families requiring higher symptomology for identification under the autism educational category. Implications and limitations will be discussed along with future research needs to improve access to quality care for students from low resource families.