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. 2022 May;26(4):988-994.
doi: 10.1177/13623613211043643. Epub 2021 Sep 17.

Short report: Call to action for autism clinicians in response to anti-Black racism

Diondra Straiton  1 , Aksheya Sridhar  1
Affiliations

Short report: Call to action for autism clinicians in response to anti-Black racism

Diondra Straiton et al. Autism. 2022 May.

Abstract

Black autistic people experience anti-Black racism when interacting with service systems and the clinicians in those systems. In this article, we describe the various steps families take to get services and how anti-Black racism makes that process even harder. We discuss research that shows the negative effects of anti-Black racism in autism assessment, treatment, and quality of care. We then provide five recommendations that clinicians should follow to reduce anti-Black racism in the autism field: (1) find Black autistic people and listen to their opinions about your organization, (2) always keep learning about how your profession promotes anti-Black racism, (3) recognize that the process of a clinician learning to be culturally humble takes time and is never "complete," (4) pay attention to all of the steps that families must take to receive autism services and how these steps are even harder for Black individuals, and (5) advocate for your organization to make systems-level changes in their policies and procedures.

Keywords: Black autistic community; racism.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of conflicting interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Pathway to access and utilize autism services, including examples of anti-Black racism. Adapted from Levy et al. (2015). Primary Care Clinical Pathway for Autism Screening and Referral, Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania, https://www.chop.edu/clinical-pathway/autism-screening-and-referral-clinical-pathway.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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