Black History Month: The Lack of Research Centered on the Black Autistic Community

Image Description: Black rectangle with the following written from top to bottom with each line a different color. White on top, red second, yellow third, and green fourth spelling out “Celebrating Black History Month.”

During Black History Month this year, I wanted to highlight issues related to being black and neurodivergent. I want to acknowledge that I am Caucasian, but feel that racism hurts all of us, and we all have an obligation to speak out against racism when we see it.

The first issue I want to highlight is the lack of autism research focused on the black (or any people of color) community. This has been true from the beginning of autism research, and it does not seem to be getting better. When doing research for my doctoral capstone project, which later became my book, I was very disappointed to find that out of the dozens of studies I pulled for my lit review, only 7 included racial or ethnic demographic information. Of those 7, only one included information related to white versus nonwhite, with 79% of individuals in the sample identifying as white. Of the other six, all were majority white with an average of 62.2% of sample participants identifying as Caucasian.

Why does this matter? Because by continuing to focus on a majority of white individuals when conducting autism research, we have less information about what autism looks like in minority populations. This leads to minorities being misdiagnosed, or being diagnosed at later ages than their same age peers. This means less early intervention and needed supports. It is well beyond time for autism research to focus on people of color to ensure that their unique presentations and needs are identified.