Parental Report of the Diagnostic Process and Outcome: ASD Compared With Other Developmental Disabilities

Abstract

Parents report that the process of getting an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis is arduous, lengthy, and fraught with difficulties. This analysis of the Pathways survey data set examined the experiences of parents who said, at the time of the survey, that their child currently had ASD compared with parents who said, at the time of the survey, that their child currently had some other developmental disability. Despite substantially earlier parental concerns about their child’s development, the ASD group ( n = 1,420) received their current diagnosis about 7 months later ( M age at diagnosis = 62.8 months, SE = 1.62) on average, than did children in the group diagnosed with other developmental delay ( n = 2,098, M age at diagnosis = 55.4 months, SE = 2.13). Parents in the “Current ASD” group were more likely to report that the health professional said nothing was wrong or that the child might “grow out of it,” emphasizing a common parental complaint. Continued efforts to improve parents’ experience of the diagnostic process are warranted.