Parent-Reported Assessment Scores Reflect the ASD Severity Level in 2- to 7-Year-Old Children

Abstract

We investigated the relationship between parent-reported assessments and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) severity level. Parents evaluated 9573 children with ASD on five subscales—combinatorial receptive language, expressive language, sociability, sensory awareness, and health—using the Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist (ATEC) and Mental Synthesis Evaluation Checklist (MSEC). The scores in every subscale improved with age, and there were clear differences between the three diagnostic categories. The differences between mild and moderate ASD, and moderate and severe ASD reached statistical significance in each subscale and in every age group in children 3 years of age and older. These findings demonstrate a consistent relationship between children’s diagnoses and their assessments and provide evidence in support of the reliability of parent-report evaluations for ASD. Additionally, this is the first investigation of the relationship between ASD severity level and the ATEC/MSEC scores for the age range from 2 to 7 years.

Unsupervised hierarchical clustering of 31,000 autistic individuals identifies three distinct groups of language comprehension abilities

“…This understanding may be especially important for language comprehension assessment, which evaluation in a clinical o ce can be very tricky. Additionally, multiple previous studies of our database indicated consistent and truthful parent reports [21][22][23] . It is possible that parents of our participants are somewhat special in this regard, since they chose to administer language therapy to their children on their own, which shows initiative and dedication.…”

“…When caregivers have completed several evaluations, the last evaluation was used for analysis. A good reliability of such parent-reported diagnosis has been previously demonstrated 22 . The study included 31,845 participants, the average age was 6.5 ± 2.6 years (range of 4 to 21 years), 78% participants were males.…”

“…As a part of ATEC 19 and MSEC 2,11,15,[21][22][23] subscales, parents responded to fourteen language comprehension questions described in Table 1. Additionally, caregiver responses to the ATEC 19 questionnaire were used to assess children's expressive language, sociability, sensory awareness, and health.…”

Joint engagement is associated with greater development of language and sensory awareness in children with autism

“…Most app users (82%) reported ASD diagnosis by their last evaluation. A good reliability of such parent-reported diagnosis was previously demonstrated (Jagadeesan et al, 2022). Furthermore, the parent-reported ASD diagnosis was supported by absolute values of ATEC scores.…”

“…Conversely, if parents misreported their children’s diagnosis, no difference in the average assessment score would be expected between the groups. This cross-sectional analysis of 9573 children has demonstrated statistically significant differences between mild and moderate ASD diagnosis as well as between moderate and severe ASD diagnosis in each subscale and in every age group in children 3 years of age and older (Jagadeesan et al, 2022). These findings contribute to support good fidelity of parents’ reports of children’s diagnosis.…”