To Be Young, Black, and Autistic

A recent bet.com article touched on why the delay in diagnosis of autism in Black children negatively affects their quality of life outcome. Autism, like many medical conditions, represents the blatant inequity in treatment of disorders across class, and more importantly, race. 

With children, early education remains the cornerstone of long-term success in development. Failing to recognize the connectivity between nutrition, socialization, exposure to language, environmental safety, mental health, and a child's school experience is failing to address how so many minority youth get left behind in the race for success. On a basic level, the symptoms that manifest across the autism spectrum affect social interaction and communication-- both integral in early learning, and often determinants of how well a child performs.
It is understandable, then, how autism fits in the scheme of systematic abandonments of Black youth, and how an effort to remedy the core issues in inequity represent not just a brighter outlook for autistic children, but rather for engagement of the medical community with Black populations overall.

The finding that Black children are disproportionately placed at a disadvantage within the autistic community only supports the reality that the treatment of autism is steeped in privilege. While treatments vary as widely as the theories surrounding the origin of the disorder, many involve early detection, constant and consistent therapeutic behaviors, and expensive dietary adjustments-- in other words, time and money. This is a disorder that requires attention, trial and error, and a team of advocates that constantly work at the incremental betterment of the child's basic functions.
Living in a society that puts the average Black person at any number of disadvantages, say, without special needs children, makes the potential for the autistic child's developmental advancement that much more difficult.

The article also suggests that fear of labelism plays a role in the delay in diagnosis for Black children. Consider what this means for a moment.
Boys are four times more likely to be diagnosed with autism than girls. Black children experience negative behavioral labeling at a higher incidence than their white counterparts. Imagine being the parent of a Black boy, fearing his societal inevitability of racial profiling, combating the systematic educational injustices he will face in elementary school, and knowing that, if diagnosed with a condition, he will more than likely not receive appropriate treatment. Fear of calling attention to your child, or at least not knowing where to turn and who to trust, may be of major concern.

In no uncertain terms, the findings of the referenced study point to inconsistencies in clinician behavior when diagnosing children. Pretending that doctors are not a part of the problem is a part of the problem.
Addressing the likely inadvertent, yet discriminatory, misdiagnoses of Black autistic children would require an examination of how the medical profession approaches real and imagined racial differences in patient populations. This is essential in beginning to dissolve disparities in medical engagement and treatment of minorities, especially in childhood health.

The autism problem is not simply an autism problem for Black children. It, too, is woven in the racial struggle for access. Unraveling the schema of how Blacks are handled medically can only be achieved when the difference is acknowledged institutionally.
Who is stepping up to change the script?