Brenda Barrio, associate professor of special education, is focused on helping to solve for racial and ethnic disparities that exist in special education. In collaboration with Susan Nichols, interim executive director of UNT’s Kristin Farmer Autism Center, she is researching the disparities in diagnoses and treatment of young children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) from culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) backgrounds, who are far less likely than their peers to be diagnosed early.