Race/Ethnicity, Intellectual Disability, and Diagnostic Characteristics Among School-Aged Youth with Autism: A Cross-Sectional Study

Over the past 25 years, research has documented racial/ethnic differences and gaps in aspects of autism identification, including age of diagnosis and prevalence rates. A trend has been identified wherein Black youth are more likely than their peers to have autism with accompanying intellectual disability (ID). The present study used five years of data from the National Survey of Children's Health (2017–2021) and multivariable logistic regression to identify if there were racial/ethnic differences in the age of autism diagnosis, severity classification, and cooccurring psychiatric and developmental conditions while also accounting for a diagnosis of ID. The study's results demonstrated that when accounting for ID, Hispanic youth had higher odds of being diagnosed in infant or toddlerhood (ages 1–3) than in middle childhood (ages 6–9) compared to White youth. In addition, youth in the Black and multiracial/other groups had lower odds of being diagnosed during adolescence (ages 10–15+). The following article provides support for the presence of diagnostic gaps and implications for research and practice.