The TEACCH Transition Assessment – Preliminary Findings in a Sample of Young Adults with Autism

Background:  

A priority of the Combating Autism Act (2006) is better addressing the needs of young adults with autism spectrum disorders.  The TEACCH Transition Assessment Profile Second Edition (TTAP) is a vocational skills assessment developed for adolescents and young adults with autism spectrum disorders (Mesibov, Thomas, Chapman, & Schopler, 2007).  The TTAP is primarily intended to assist in program planning in education and job placements. It has not yet received much attention in research; however, it has the potential to serve as a direct assessment and way of quantifying an adolescent or young adult’s vocational skills to complement more commonly used caregiver or teacher reports.  

Objectives:  

This study will examine the correlations among the subscales of the TTAP, as well as the relationships among the subscales and other relevant measures.  

Methods:  

This sample (n=39) was drawn from an existing longitudinal cohort of individuals with autism spectrum disorders.  Participants were an average age of 19 years, 4 months and 90% were male.  They were administered the TTAP, as well as comprehensive battery of cognitive, language, adaptive and diagnostic measures.  The mean full scale ratio IQ of the sample was 29, with a range of 7 to 67.  

Results:  

Items from the following subscales were administered: Vocational Skills, Vocational Behaviors, and Leisure Skills.  For each item, participants were scored as “pass,” “emerge,” or “fail.”  Only passes and fails were included in analyses.  In this sample, items were not normally distributed within each subscale.   The Vocation Skills and Vocational Behaviors subscales both presented as linear scales, while the Leisure Skills subscale had a bimodal distribution.  All of the subscales were correlated with one another at .72 or higher   All the subscales were correlated with verbal ratio IQ at .65 or higher and nonverbal ratio IQ at .56 or higher.  All of the subscales are correlated with non-verbal mental age at .56 or higher.  Additional analyses will examine the relationship between TTAP subscores and ADOS severity scores, Vineland domain scores, and other relevant behavioral assessments.  

Conclusions:  

 These preliminary analyses indicate that the TTAP subscales do measure a unified concept.  Further analyses will examine the relationship between the subscales and other related measures.