“Invisible Disability? Searching for Correlates of Autism with Washington State’s Positive Achievement Change Tool (PACT)

• In Event: Considerations of Illness and Disabilities in Juvenile Court

Abstract

Scholars pursuing research agendas incorporating developmental psychology into criminology, juvenile justice, and neurodiversity have discovered that youth of color are under-represented among persons formally diagnosed with autism. While the roles of clinicians’ unconscious race bias as well as early research on autism conducted exclusively with White subjects are factors cited in the disparity, the following study explores how bureaucratic mechanisms such as assessment forms may have contributed to it as well. Drawing on a sample of approximately 103,000 Positive Achievement Change Tool (PACT) assessments administered to nearly 28,000 youths between 2009 – 2019, conditions often co-occurring with autism such as anxiety, ADHD, and use of special education are explored among non-White youth. Policy, practice, and theoretical implications of any emerging race discrepancies are discussed.

Author

• Laurie Drapela, Washington State University - Vancouver