Easiest Cities to Find Caregivers With Autism Experience in the U.S.

Finding the right child care for your son or daughter is already a daunting task in and of itself. But, if you’re the parent of a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder (A.S.D.), this task takes on a whole new layer of complexity.

You know that you want your next caregiver — whether it’s a babysitter or a nanny — to meet all of your standards and criteria for a child care professional. But, you also want to make sure that she has experience — ideally, a lot of experience — caring for children with autism, too. Although it does take time for all children to get comfortable with a new caregiver, hiring someone with autism experience can help make the process smoother for your child — and for you.

The question is: how do you find caregivers with autism experience? Where do you start?

One of your first steps should be to figure out if your city even has these types of child care professionals to begin with. To make this a little easier for you, Care.com ranked 85 U.S. cities based on how easy it is for families to find child care professionals with autism experience.

To create this ranking, our data analysts looked at the number of applicants with autism experience who applied to Care.com jobs that involved caring for a child with A.S.D. The more applicants these jobs had, the easier it is for parents to find caregivers with autism experience.

What We Found

Want to know which cities made it into our Top 10 list? Here they are:

According to our data, Connecticut had the most cities in the top 10 list, with New Haven and Bridgeport clinching the #1 and #2 spots, respectively, and Hartford weighing in at #8. California followed close behind, with two of its cities — Riverside and Oxnard, taking the #5 and #6 spots, respectively. 

(Scroll all the way down to see the full data table for all 85 U.S. cities.)

While analyzing the data, our researchers discovered another interesting fact: education levels tended to be higher with caregivers who had autism experience than with those who didn’t.

Below, you’ll see a data table that reflects the percentages of child care providers (both with and without autism experience) who fall into the following “education levels”:

• They have a graduate degree;
• They have some graduate school under their belts;
• They have a college degree;
• They have some college under their belts;
• They have a high school degree; or,
• They have some high school under their belts.

Why This All Matters

In the United States, an estimated 1 in 68 school-aged children have autism spectrum disorder (A.S.D.), according to the Centers for Disease Control.

“What we know for sure is that there are many children living with autism who need services and support, now and as they grow into adolescence and adulthood,” said Stuart K. Shapira, M.D., Ph.D., chief medical officer for CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities.

So, clearly, finding the right child care options for children with autism can have a significant impact on their overall quality of life.

“Parents, child care professionals and doctors can monitor each child’s development and act right away on any developmental concerns,” Dr. Shapira said. “It’s important to remember that children can be connected to services even before an official diagnosis is made.”

Full Data Set

If you’d like to see how each of the 85 cities stacked up, take a look at the table below:

Methodology

Care.com analysts compared data from child care jobs for children with autism on Care.com in 85 Metropolitan Statistics Areas (M.S.A.s). A city’s ranking is based on the number of applicants with autism experience per job requiring care of children with this diagnosis. The more applicants with autism experience per job, the higher the ranking.

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