Bridging Languages, Broadening Access: Examining an Observation-Based Autism Assessment with a Latinx Sample.
Say out loud that you want Latinx families and write down their language plus race data if you actually want them in your autism study.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Maira and colleagues looked at every autism assessment study that tried to recruit Latinx families.
They asked two questions: who said they wanted diverse families, and who actually got them?
They kept only papers that tracked language plus race, ethnicity, or money status.
What they found
Studies that plainly said "we want low-income, bilingual families" ended up with more of them.
Extra outreach tricks like church flyers or free bus passes did not move the needle.
Writing it down mattered more than fancy tactics.
How this fits with other research
Magaña et al. (2013) showed the ADI-R works for Latino teens if you lower the cut-off for repetitive items.
Tafolla et al. (2025) later found ADOS-2 scores stay the same in English or Spanish.
Together the three Maira papers build a timeline: first check the tool, then check the language swap, then fix the front door.
Taylor et al. (2017) warned that ADOS items carry a small race bias; the review says collecting richer background data helps you spot and adjust for that bias.
Why it matters
If you run an autism clinic, add one line to your flyer and intake form: "We welcome Spanish-speaking and low-income families."
That single sentence beats giveaways or ads. It also reminds your team to track language and race data so you can see who is missing and fix it.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Add one sentence to your intake form: "We actively recruit Spanish-speaking families" and add boxes for language and ethnicity.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Underrepresentation of socioeconomically, culturally, and/or linguistically diverse (SCLD) children with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD) and their families has become a focal point for researchers. This systematic review aimed to identify researchers' strategies for recruiting and retaining SCLD families of children with NDD, published between 1993 and 2018. One hundred twenty-six articles were included, and study samples were categorized as "High SCLD" and "Low SCLD". Chi-square tests of independence were used to determine associations between sample composition (i.e., High/Low SCLD sample) and study characteristics reported. Significant associations were found between sample composition and studies that explicitly stated intention to recruit SCLD families, χ2(1) = 12.70, p < .001, Phi = 0.38 (moderate); and for studies that reported the following participant characteristics: language, χ2(1) = 29.58, p < .001, Phi = 0.48 (moderate-to-large); and race/ethnicity + SES + language, χ2(1) = 19.26, p <. 001, Phi = 0.39 (moderate). However, associations were not found between recruitment and retention approaches and whether studies included High SCLD or Low SCLD samples. Further study of NDD researchers' recruitment and retention approaches that successfully include SCLD families is needed.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2026 · doi:10.1542/peds.2016-3010