Each Tuesday afternoon, five people bring their children to Rush University Medical Center, a few miles from downtown Chicago. They come from different parts of the city, from its suburban outskirts to its urban South Side.

For the children, ages 8 to 14, it’s a weekly get-together led by two friendly women. The children talk about and practice sharing, asking others to play, dealing with skills such as losing and winning, and also learn to manage stress through deep breathing and other techniques. For the parents, it is a chance for their children to improve their social and communication skills with help from child psychologists. All the children are on the autism spectrum. All but one of the families are black or Latino.

Blanca Escobedo, 43, was born in Mexico and came to the United States in 1975. When her now-13-year-old son was an infant, he did not move in his crib, Escobedo recalls; as a toddler, he seldom spoke. Her son’s pediatrician, whose office was in Chicago’s gritty South Side, dismissed her concerns and said the boy was lazy. But Escobedo, who has two older sons, says she “knew something was wrong.” The boy was frequently anxious and upset. He didn’t play with toys, didn’t eat well and cried often. “We use to cry with him because we didn’t know what he wanted,” she says.

She sought out testing for her son, who was diagnosed with autism when he was 2. Escobedo enrolled him in a special-needs school in Chicago that helped with his developmental skills. Since age 5, he has been attending a conventional school, but he still has epileptic seizures, anxiety and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Escobedo, who left school after 10th grade, works as a cashier at a dry-cleaning store in Chicago. Not all of her son’s therapies and treatments have been covered by insurance, “but you have to do it,” she says. Despite the challenges, Escobedo is relatively fortunate. Her boss gives her flexibility, which is a big help. He lets her close the store and leave work if her son has a seizure, for his medical appointments and for the therapy group at Rush.

Other Latino families struggle even more, she says. “A lot of people don’t have papers; they’re not legal. They don’t advocate for themselves.”

Rashaan Meador, a black father whose son is also part of the group, says his son, 8, was diagnosed with autism in 2014. The news surprised Meador because his son had always done well on exams. But it did explain some of his son’s behavior — such as obsessively playing video games — and his aversion to group social situations such as birthday parties.

Meador is college-educated and works as a school administrator. He accepted the diagnosis and sought support for his son, but he acknowledges that there is tremendous stigma about any mental condition or disorder in the black community. “Even I had to get it out of my mind that it was something bad,” he says. For some parents, getting a diagnosis for their child may not be a priority if they are “worried about food, shelter, basic stuff,” he says. Even if they have the interest, some people don’t have the time or money to take their children to support groups or treatment, he says.

Escobedo and Meador’s stories hint at some reasons why minorities are underrepresented in studies of autism and have little access to treatment options. Broad socioeconomic, cultural and language barriers keep minority families from participating in both domains. New studies are delving into ways to recruit and retain minorities in research, as well as developing better screening, support and treatment programs, all of which can bridge the gaps that lead to the exclusion of these groups.

In the context of autism, the term ‘minority’ may be misleading. Researchers have traditionally believed that autism is more common among white children in the U.S., but this may not in fact be true: A 2014 study found that children of mothers who are black, or immigrated from Central or South America, Vietnam or the Philippines, are more likely to be diagnosed with autism than children of white mothers born in the U.S. What’s more, children of black and Latina women born in the U.S. are more likely to show traits of autism, such as impaired language skills and emotional outbursts, than children of U.S.-born white women.

This diversity in autism’s prevalence is not yet reflected in scientific research on autism. “Look at who is in a research study,” says David Mandell, director of the Center for Mental Health Policy and Services Research at the University of Pennsylvania. “The majority are still affluent, white families. We have a long way to go toward reaching minority populations and engaging them in these efforts.”