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Self-determination plays an important role in outcomes in autism and shows intersectional disparities. Yet, little is known about the role of individual differences or social drivers of health in the development of self-determination. Understanding these factors is key for developing effective supports. This mixed-methods convergent study examined self-determination in racially and ethnically minoritized autistic individuals and caregivers. Participants ages 13 to 30 ( N = 73) varying widely in language and cognitive ability and caregivers ( n =52) completed the Self-Determination Inventory. Autism traits and sense of community predicted caregiver report of self-determination, and autism traits and language predicted self-report of self-determination, consistent with DisCrit and Diversity Science. Self-Determination Inventory interviews of a subset of participants ( n = 13) and caregivers ( n = 9) were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis. Themes pointed to the role of the intersection of race and disability in shaping self-determination. Altogether, findings point to the importance of these frameworks, environmental influences, and multi-informant perspectives in characterizing self-determination. Future work should focus on the impact of environmental factors in self-determination in minoritized autistic individuals during the transition to adulthood.

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PURPOSE: Despite the clinical utility of sentence production and sentence repetition to identify language impairment in autism, little is known about the extent to which these tasks are sensitive to potential language variation. One promising method is strategic scoring, which has good clinical utility for identifying language impairment in nonautistic school-age children across variants of English. This report applies strategic scoring to analyze sentence repetition and sentence production in autistic adolescents and adults. METHOD: Thirty-one diverse autistic adolescents and adults with language impairment (ALI; n = 15) and without language impairment (ASD; n = 16) completed the Formulated Sentences and Recalling Sentences subtests of the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Fifth Edition. Descriptive analyses and regression evaluated effects of scoring condition, group, and scoring condition by group on outcomes, as well as group differences in finiteness marking across utterances and morphosyntactic structures. RESULTS: Strategic and unmodified item-level scores were essentially constant on both subtests and significantly lower in the ALI than the ASD group. Only group predicted item-level scores. Group differences were limited to: percent grammatical utterances on Formulated Sentences and percent production of overt structures combined on Sentence Repetition (ALI < ASD). DISCUSSION: Findings support the feasibility of strategic scoring for sentence production and sentence repetition to identify language impairment and indicate that potential language variation in finiteness marking did not confound outcomes in this sample. To better understand the clinical utility of strategic scoring, replication with a larger sample varying in age and comparisons with dialect-sensitive measures are needed. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.25822336.

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Purpose: Despite the clinical utility of sentence production and sentence repetition to identify language impairment in autism, little is known about the extent to which these tasks are sensitive to potential dialectal variation. One promising method is strategic scoring (Oetting et al., 2016), which has good clinical utility for identifying language impairment in nonautistic school-age children across dialects of English. This report applies strategic scoring to analyze sentence repetition and sentence production in autistic adolescents and adults. Method: Thirty-one diverse autistic adolescents and adults with language impairment (ALI; n=15) and without language impairment (ASD; n=16) completed the Formulated Sentences and Recalling Sentences subtests of the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-5th Ed (Wiig et al., 2013). Descriptive analyses and regression evaluated effects of scoring condition, group, and scoring condition by group on outcomes, as well as group differences in finiteness-marking across utterances and morphosyntactic structures. Results: Strategic and unmodified item-level scores were essentially constant on both subtests and significantly lower in the ALI than the ASD group. Only group predicted item-level scores. Group differences were limited to: percent grammatical utterances on Formulated Sentences and percent production of overt structures combined on Sentence Repetition (ALI < ASD). Discussion: Findings support the feasibility of strategic scoring for sentence production and sentence repetition to identify language impairment and indicate that potential dialectal variation in finiteness-marking did not confound outcomes in this sample. To better understand the clinical utility of strategic scoring, replication with a larger sample varying in age and comparisons with dialect-sensitive measures are needed.

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PURPOSE: Language and autism research each typically excludes racially and ethnically minoritized (REM) autistic individuals. In addition, in the case of autistic individuals with language impairment, investigators often approach caregivers to discuss research participation, rather than autistic individuals themselves. This gap limits the ecological validity of language research in autism. To address this gap, this clinical focus article describes strategies for engaging REM autistic young adults with language impairment using lessons learned from 5 years of longitudinal research with this population. This approach involved an ongoing community partnership, as well as participatory partnerships with REM autistic individuals and community stakeholders, consistent with a "slow science" approach. CONCLUSIONS: The approach yielded excellent retention of participants over 5 years and led to co-development of research projects aimed at priorities described by REM autistic individuals and their families, including understanding self-determination, social determinants of health, and language variability in autistic REM individuals with language impairment. Findings support the utility of community-based methods with autistic REM young adults with language impairment, with key takeaways for diversifying research while replicating, extending, and building theory.

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PURPOSE: Open science that is truly accessible and transparent to all will enhance reproducibility. However, there are ethical and practical concerns in implementing open science practices, especially when working with populations who are systematically excluded from and marginalized in communication sciences and disorders (CSD) research, such as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) from clinical populations. The purpose of this article was to discuss these concerns and present actionable steps to support open science in CSD research with BIPOC. CONCLUSIONS: In the movement toward open and reproducible science, the discipline of CSD must prioritize accessibility and transparency, in addition to the implementation of individual scientific practices. Such a focus requires building trust with BIPOC not only as research participants but also as valued leaders of the scientific community.

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Purpose: The ultimate aim of an assessment is to help examiners make valid conclusions about an individual's skill given their performance on a particular measure. Yet, assessing the language abilities of culturally and linguistically diverse individuals requires researchers and practitioners to carefully consider the appropriateness of traditional parameters of test psychometrics (e.g., reliability, or consistency of assessments as measurement) plus the intersectional identities that inform the generalizability of these parameters. The purpose of this clinical focus article is to provide clinicians and researchers with resources to interpret and use common standardized language assessments in English for culturally and linguistically diverse school-age youth. We present theories from psychometrics, legal studies, and education relevant to language assessment of diverse individuals, review standardized language assessments in English, and provide theory-to-practice applications of language assessment scenarios. Conclusions: Implementing intersectional approaches in working with diverse children and using assessment scores as just one piece of evidence amid a broader evidence base will contribute to a more accurate evaluation of culturally and linguistically diverse children's language abilities. A comprehensive approach involving multiple stakeholders across the field of communication sciences and disorders may support achieving such implementation.

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PURPOSE: The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) has committed to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) by retaining and advancing Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) individuals in the discipline of communication sciences and disorders (CSD), amid critical shortages of faculty to train the next generation of practitioners and researchers. Publishing research is central to the recruitment, retention, and advancement of faculty. However, inequity in peer review may systematically target BIPOC scholars, adding yet another barrier to their success as faculty. This viewpoint article addresses the challenge of inequity in peer review and provides some practical strategies for developing equitable peer-review practices. First, we describe the demographics of ASHA constituents, including those holding research doctorates, who would typically be involved in peer review. Next, we explore the peer-review process, describing how inequity in peer review may adversely impact BIPOC authors or research with BIPOC communities. Finally, we offer real-world examples of and a framework for equitable peer review. CONCLUSIONS: Inequity at the individual and systemic levels in peer review can harm BIPOC CSD authors. Such inequity has effects not limited to peer review itself and exerts long-term adverse effects on the recruitment, retention, and advancement of BIPOC faculty in CSD. To uphold ASHA's commitment to DEI and to move the discipline of CSD forward, it is imperative to build equity into the editorial structure for publishing, the composition of editorial boards, and journals content. While we focus on inequity in CSD, these issues are relevant to other disciplines.

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PURPOSE: Little is known about how others evaluate applicants to master's programs in speech-language pathology along criteria used during holistic review despite more programs adopting holistic review. This knowledge gap limits our understanding of whether holistic admissions may offer a more equitable pathway to entering speech-language pathology. This study investigated how faculty and PhD students evaluated applicants to master's speech-language pathology programs along criteria used during holistic review. METHOD: We administered a survey online through a Qualtrics platform. Respondents (N = 66) were faculty and PhD candidates in U.S. speech-language-hearing departments. Survey blocks included demographics, professional background, and vignettes. Vignettes featured profiles of applicants to master's programs in speech-language pathology. Vignettes systematically varied in the indicators of applicant criteria, which were specified at low, moderate, or high levels or not specified. After reading each vignette, respondents rated the applicant and indicated their admissions decision. Analysis included descriptives. RESULTS: Relative to an applicant who was at a high level for all indicators except cultural and linguistic diversity, respondents ranked applicants who varied in their indicators of criteria levels lower. Respondents were also less likely to make an explicit "accept" decision (vs. "waitlist" or "reject") for this latter group of applicants. CONCLUSIONS: Even when implementing criteria used during holistic review, applicants who vary from a "high-achieving" stereotype may still face barriers to entry. Future work is needed to understand the precise nature of how holistic admissions review may play out in actual practice and help increase diversity in the profession.

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PURPOSE: The Student Equity and Inclusion Workgroup is a student-led initiative at the University of Kansas that aims to advance equity and inclusion. Within this structure, the workgroup is entirely student-led and independent of any institutional initiatives. It has developed three themes - recognizing minority student leadership, ensuring equitable access to opportunities, and meaningfully supporting students - and used those themes to develop comprehensive programming in the way of research, institutional advocacy, mentorship, and fellowship. Research initiatives included creating research opportunities for minority students by developing independent research projects. Institutional advocacy initiatives focused on policy change and developing a uniquely situated network of allies at and beyond the university. Mentorship centered student-to-student transmission of knowledge, skills, and support. Fellowship entailed creating opportunities for community-building and recognition of minority student excellence. CONCLUSIONS: Student-led initiatives such as those of the workgroup may be an effective way of supporting minority students in CSD. Institutions endeavoring to advance equity and inclusion should consider empowering students through facilitation of self-directed development, using institutional supports to support minority students on their terms, and recognizing students as capable partners in rethinking equity and inclusion.

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Recent years have seen a spirited debate over whether there is linguistic injustice in academic publishing. One way that linguistic injustice might occur is if gatekeepers (e.g., peer reviewers and editors) judge the scholarly quality of academic writing more harshly if the writing does not meet expectations for international academic English, even if the content is good. We tested this with a randomized control study in which scholars judged the scientific quality of several scientific abstracts. Each abstract had two versions with identical scientific content, such that the language in one version conformed to standards for international academic English, and the language in the other version did not (but was still comprehensible). While the data are preliminary and the effects statistically inconclusive, both pre-registered and exploratory analyses of the data suggest that scholars may give abstracts lower ratings of scientific quality when the writing does not conform to standards of international academic English. These results suggest that linguistic bias may occur in academic peer reviewing and motivate further study to better understand and address this phenomenon.