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. 2023 Apr;27(3):714-722.
doi: 10.1177/13623613221114280. Epub 2022 Aug 11.

Mobile and online consumer tools to screen for autism do not promote equity

Benjamin W Sanders  1 , Steven Bedrick  1 , Sarabeth Broder-Fingert  2 , Shannon A Brown  3 , Jill K Dolata  1 , Eric Fombonne  1 , Julie A Reeder  4 , Luis Andres Rivas Vazquez  1 , Plyce Fuchu  2 , Yesenia Morales  1 , Katharine E Zuckerman  1
Affiliations

Mobile and online consumer tools to screen for autism do not promote equity

Benjamin W Sanders et al. Autism. 2023 Apr.

Abstract

Many parents wonder if their child might have autism. Many parents use their smartphones to answer health questions. We asked, "How easy or hard is it for parents to use their smartphones to find 'tools' to test their child for signs of autism?" After doing pretend parent searches, we found that only one in 10 search results were tools to test children for autism. These tools were not designed for parents who have low income or other challenges such as low literacy skills, low English proficiency, or not being tech-savvy.

Keywords: autism spectrum disorder; child; digital divide; mass screening; mobile applications; parents; preschool.

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Conflict of interest statement

We have no known conflict of interest to disclose.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Conceptual model of intervention-generated inequality and mobile health screening. Adapted, with permission, from Veinot, Mitchell, & Ancker (2018) JAMIA, 25(8), 1080–1088.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
mHealth Autism Screening: search term development
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
mHealth Autism Screening: search strategy VPN = Virtual Private Network
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
mHealth Autism Screening: search yield of most effective terms across all 65 web searches
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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