Autism Screening: An Important Step Forward but “Miles to Go Before We Sleep”

Contemporary views of disability emphasize how environmental and societal adaptations can empower individuals across the developmental continuum by mitigating barriers to inclusion. The social model of disability¹ was informed by the experiences of persons with motor restrictions who felt “isolated and excluded by such things as flights of steps.”² Less visible but highly impactful are the barriers to access to health and human services experienced by families related to their primary language and ethnicity. Indeed, the current national reckoning with systemic racism has brought into starker focus how such factors create inequities in access to an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis.³

Thus, the report by Harris et al⁴ in this issue of Pediatrics on the Developmental Check-In (DCI) is timely. Recognizing that current screens may be inadequate for children whose parents have limited proficiency in spoken and written English, particularly for racial and/or ethnic minorities, the authors developed a visually based ASD screening tool designed for 24- to 60-month-olds. The current study extends the validation of the DCI⁵ to a sample of children participating in Early Head Start …

Address correspondence to Lonnie Zwaigenbaum, MD, Msc, Autism Research Center, Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital, E209, 10230 111th Ave, Edmonton, AB, Canada T5G 0B7. E-mail: lonniez{at}ualberta.ca