The impact of adverse childhood events on service support and educational outcomes of children who are autistic: A theory-guided analysis using structural equation modeling

Autistic children who have experienced adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) may have barriers to receiving special education or other developmental services-thus, impacting educational outcomes. Our objective was to model such a pathway using the 2016-2021 National Survey of Children's Health d...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Autism research 2024-04, Vol.17 (4), p.739-746
Main Authors: Hartwell, Micah, Batioja, Kelsi, Elenwo, Covenant, Keener, Ashley, Mazur, Anya, Chesher, Tessa
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adverse childhood experiences
Autism
Autism Spectrum Disorder - epidemiology
Autistic children
Autistic Disorder - epidemiology
Child
Childhood
Children
Education
Educational Status
Humans
Latent Class Analysis
Metropolitan areas
Modelling
Schools
Sociodemographics
Special education
Structural equation modeling
Support services
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Summary:Autistic children who have experienced adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) may have barriers to receiving special education or other developmental services-thus, impacting educational outcomes. Our objective was to model such a pathway using the 2016-2021 National Survey of Children's Health datasets. We extracted data for school outcomes, use of special education and autism-related specialty services and sociodemographic characteristics among autistic children within the data. Associations between sociodemographics and ACEs (categorized as 0, 1-3, and 4+) were tested using design-based X tests. We then used structural equation modeling to map the quasi-causal pathways. The sample for our analysis included 4717 autistic children-38.94% were aged 6-10 years, 35.73% of children aged 11-14 years, and 25.32% were between 15 and 17 years-with 88.70% living in metropolitan areas. The X showed significant relationships between ACEs and age, ethnoracial groups, and urbanicity among others. The SEM showed ACEs were directly associated with poorer school outcomes (β = -0.14 (0.04), p = 0.002) and through their inverse relationship with support services (β = -0.08 (0.04), p = 0.023)- when support services were increased, school outcomes improved (β = 0.62, p 
ISSN:1939-3792
1939-3806
1939-3806
DOI:10.1002/aur.3126