Ethnic Labels

With World Autism Awareness Day just behind us, it seems fitting to me to ask: is autism more common among children of some ethnicities than in others?Last fall, I wrote about a mysterious cluster of autism among Somali children in Minnesota. At the time, the Minneapolis school system reported that although Somalis make up just 6 percent of the city’s public school population, they comprise 17 percent of the special education students labeled ‘autistic’.Public health clusters are usually suspect, but in a report released last week, the Minnesota Health Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that, among 3- and 4-year-old children, those of Somali origin are two to seven times more likely to be placed in preschool programs for autism. The report also found other ethnic trends in these classes: just two Asians and one Native American between 2005 and 2007.Read more at...SFARI, April 2009.