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Friday, May 8, 2009: 12:10 PM
Northwest Hall Room 2 (Chicago Hilton)
Background: The difficulty in identifying Autistic Disorder at an early age may partly arise from the fact that existing tools and the current diagnostic criteria defined in the ICD-10 (1992) and DSM-IV-TR (2000) describe behaviors thought to occur later in the developmental pathology of the disorder.
Objectives: The ADEC (Autism Detection in Early Childhood; ACER, 2007) was developed to provide a psychometrically sound screening tool for clinicians to more accurately identify autism in children under the age of three years
Methods: The referred sample ranged in age from 14 to 36 months. Data were collected from three groups; those who had received a diagnosis of Autistic Disorder, those at risk of developing the disorder and typically developing children. The concurrent validity of the tool was examined by administering it together with the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS; Schopler, Reichler, De Vellis, & Daly, 1980), the Autism Diagnostic Interview - Revised (ADI-R) (Le Couteur et al., 1989; Lord, Rutter, & Le Couteur, 1994), DSM-IV-TR (APA, 2000) criteria and Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT). Other psychometric properties relating to its validity and reliability are also addressed.
Results: The ADEC was well-correlated with existing measures of Autistic Disorder some of which are labour intensive and require staff highly trained in the administration and interpretation of these data. Further, when comparing the development of skills in the autism group to that in typically developing group, the age at which the absence of these skills becomes of clinical significance is noted.
and Conclusions: Results indicate the ADEC is effective at detecting Autistic Disorder in young pre-verbal children. Overall these data support previous research suggesting that this tool is an efficient and easily administered assessment tool that can lead to earlier detection and in turn intervention that should enhance the prognosis for the child.
Objectives: The ADEC (Autism Detection in Early Childhood; ACER, 2007) was developed to provide a psychometrically sound screening tool for clinicians to more accurately identify autism in children under the age of three years
Methods: The referred sample ranged in age from 14 to 36 months. Data were collected from three groups; those who had received a diagnosis of Autistic Disorder, those at risk of developing the disorder and typically developing children. The concurrent validity of the tool was examined by administering it together with the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS; Schopler, Reichler, De Vellis, & Daly, 1980), the Autism Diagnostic Interview - Revised (ADI-R) (Le Couteur et al., 1989; Lord, Rutter, & Le Couteur, 1994), DSM-IV-TR (APA, 2000) criteria and Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT). Other psychometric properties relating to its validity and reliability are also addressed.
Results: The ADEC was well-correlated with existing measures of Autistic Disorder some of which are labour intensive and require staff highly trained in the administration and interpretation of these data. Further, when comparing the development of skills in the autism group to that in typically developing group, the age at which the absence of these skills becomes of clinical significance is noted.
and Conclusions: Results indicate the ADEC is effective at detecting Autistic Disorder in young pre-verbal children. Overall these data support previous research suggesting that this tool is an efficient and easily administered assessment tool that can lead to earlier detection and in turn intervention that should enhance the prognosis for the child.