Studies pertaining to language impairment in school-age autistic individuals underreport participant socio-demographics: A systematic review.
Teresa Girolamo, Lue Shen, Amalia Monroe-Gulick and 2 others
PMID 37157821WHAT IT FOUND
Most research on language impairment in autistic school-age children fails to report participant race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status, and samples are overwhelmingly white.
Clinicians should treat findings from these studies as having limited applicability to diverse autistic populations.
Key findings
01Only 32% of studies at least partly reported race and 29% reported ethnicity; 72.1% of autistic participants had no reported race or ethnicity information.
02Among participants with reported race and ethnicity, 77% were white, while Black participants comprised 6.2% and Hispanic/Latinx 7.2%.
03No study in the review reported specific labels for race and ethnicity or provided intersectional data.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The search was limited to studies using American English norms, potentially excluding diverse samples studied in other English variants or languages. Only studies published in English were included. Underreporting in the original studies limits the ability to draw concrete conclusions about inequity. The review did not analyze demographics of non-autistic control groups.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that language impairment profiles or assessment tools validated in this research apply universally to autistic individuals from diverse racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic backgrounds, as the evidence base is predominantly white and lacks intersectional data.