Addressing racial disparity in autism outcomes, Washington University seeks to improve diagnosis and intervention for black children
The Center for Disease Control’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network most recently reported that 1 in 59 children, or about 1.7 percent, have an autism spectrum disorder.
Historically, African-American children have being identified with autism spectrum disorder at a significantly lower rate than Caucasian children, but this gap has narrowed: across all network monitoring sites, autism remains about 7 percent more likely to be identified in Caucasian children than African-American children, and there is no evidence that this disorder is more common in any one race than another.
