Autistic students face race and class struggle

According to the state Department of Education, more than 34,000 children in California public or specialized schools with autism, a developmental disability that affects a person's ability to communicate and socialize. Local public school districts are responsible for education costs even for children who cannot be mainstreamed, or placed in regular classes. Since the 2000-01 school year, overall enrollment in the state's public schools has gone up by about 2%, while the number of enrolled children with autism has more than doubled.

POOR and minority kids with parents who don't know how or whom to pressure get fewer services — and get them later — than middle-class and wealthy kids with assertive parents. African American and Latino children with autism are one to two years older than white children before they're diagnosed.

In Los Angeles, it took white kids an average of four visits to specialists over four months to be diagnosed with autism; black children required 13 such visits over 10 months, according to 2005 legislative testimony of Robert Hendren, executive director of the UC Davis MIND Institute.

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To learn more about African Americans and autism visit Child-Autism-Parent-Cafe.Com