“…Formal ASD diagnosis in Israel follows the DSM-5 criteria and includes separate diagnoses from a psychologist and a physician (pediatric neurologist or psychiatrist) (Dinstein, Arazi, Golan, Koller, Elliott, Gozes, Shulman, Shifman, Raz, Davidovitch, Gev, Aran, Stolar, Ben-Itzchak, Snir, Israel-Yaacov, Bauminger-Zviely, Bonneh, Gal, Shamay-Tsoory, Zait, Hadad, Gross, Faroy, Bachmat, Eran, Uzefovsky, Flusser, Michaelovski, Levine, Kodesh, Gothelf, Marom, Feldman, Yosef, Bloch, Sadaka, Schtaierman, Davidovitch, Begin, Gabis, Zachor, Menashe, Golan & Meiri, 2020). Diagnostic protocols vary across different clinics in Israel, with some clinics performing standardized ADOS and standardized cognitive and language assessments, while others rely more on clinical evaluations (Dinstein et al, 2020). In this study, we reconfirmed the ASD diagnosis and obtained an index of ASD severity for individuals in the ASD group.…”