Latinos Struggle With Autism

WATSONVILLE, Calif. ­-- When Eduardo Moran was 18 months old, he didn't talk. He didn't smile. He didn't sleep.
His parents, Urbana and Raoul, took him to a Watsonville doctor, who said Eduardo was fine. A few months later, still unresponsive, the Morans were referred to Stanford University, where he went through a barrage of tests.
"One psychologist immediately knew what it was," said Raoul Moran in Spanish.
It was autism, something the Morans knew little about. Urbana thought it was a phase, until she started reading.
"I felt bad," she said in Spanish. "When I read the pamphlets, I realized it wouldn't pass."
Diagnoses of autism are on the rise, fueled in part by a better understanding of symptoms by doctors and parents. But in the Latino community, there is little information about how common autism is. Gina Fiallos, clinical and intake services director at the San Andreas Regional Center, based in Campbell, which serves developmentally delayed and disabled people, said the largest growing groups of autistic children are in the Latino and Asian communities.