Caregiver perceptions and use of the Early Communication Indicator - Autism: Examining differences among demographic groups.
Jessica R Steinbrenner, Kimberly Jenkins, Sallie Nowell and 4 others
PMID 42454238WHAT IT FOUND
Caregivers of young autistic children found the ECI-A easy to use and reported high fidelity, with no significant differences between Black and White or Latino and non-Latino families.
However, researchers rated Black caregivers as less easy to use the tool than White caregivers, and Latino families had lower fidelity on general procedures.
Key findings
01Caregivers reported the ECI-A was easy to use and their children enjoyed it, with no significant differences in these ratings between Black and White caregivers or between Latino and non-Latino caregivers.
02Researchers rated caregiver ease of use and child participation significantly higher for White families than for Black families, a difference not seen in caregiver self-reports.
03Latino families had significantly lower fidelity on general procedures compared to non-Latino families, while fidelity for other summary scores was high across groups.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample was not linguistically diverse; all participating caregivers had to be fluent in English, which may bias the sample toward families more assimilated to US majority cultures. Statistical testing was only possible for Black vs. White and Latino vs. non-Latino groups due to small sample sizes in other racial groups. The ease-of-use measures were developed by the research team and were brief, potentially lacking the depth to capture nuanced perceptions or preferences. Researcher ratings may reflect implicit bias rather than actual caregiver difficulty, as the difference was not present in caregiver self-reports. The study used a cross-sectional baseline data point from a larger validation study, so it does not assess the tool's performance over time or its sensitivity to change.
Declared interests
The authors declared no financial conflicts of interest for the current study. Several authors are involved in other projects related to the Early Communication Indicator (ECI) or ECI-Autism (ECI-A).
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the lower researcher ratings for Black caregivers as evidence that they found the tool more difficult or used it less effectively. Caregiver self-reports showed no such difference, suggesting the discrepancy may reflect researcher bias rather than actual caregiver performance.