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Standardized calibrated severity scores (CSS) have been created for Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, 2nd edition (ADOS-2) Modules 1–4 as a metric of the relative severity of autism-specific behaviors. Total and domain CSS were created for the Toddler Module to facilitate comparison to other modules. Analyses included 388 children with ASD age 12–30 months and were replicated on 435 repeated assessments from 127 children with ASD. Compared to raw scores, associations between total and domain CSS and participant characteristics were reduced in the original sample. Verbal IQ effects on Social Affect-CSS were not reduced in the replication sample. Toddler Module CSS increases comparability of ADOS-2 scores across modules and allows studies of symptom trajectories to extend to earlier ages.

Following an exploratory factor analysis, factor scores may be computed and used in subsequent analyses. Factor scores are composite variables which provide information about an individual's placement on the factor(s). This article discusses popular methods to create factor scores under two different classes: refined and non-refined. Strengths and considerations of the various methods, and for using factor scores in general, are discussed. (Contains 1 table and 3 footnotes.)

This study characterizes longitudinal change in adaptive behavior in 64 children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) without intellectual disability evaluated on multiple occasions, and examines whether prior estimate of executive function (EF) problems predicts future adaptive behavior scores. Compared to standardized estimates for their developmental stage, adaptive behavior in most participants was impaired and did not improve over time. Prior EF predicted later adaptive behavior in daily living skills and socialization domains after controlling for age and IQ. Self-monitoring behaviors robustly predicted later adaptive behavior in all domains ( d  = 0.60–0.94). Results support targeting treatment of adaptive skills in ASD, as well as the importance of assessing for EF problems that may contribute to adaptive behavior difficulties.

Although norm-referenced scores are essential to the identification of disability, they possess several features which affect their sensitivity to change. Norm-referenced scores often decrease over time among people with neurodevelopmental disorders who exhibit slower-than-average increases in ability. Further, the reliability of norm-referenced scores is lower at the tails of the distribution, resulting in floor effects and increased measurement error for people with neurodevelopmental disorders. In contrast, the person ability scores generated during the process of constructing a standardized test with item response theory are designed to assess change. We illustrate these limitations of norm-referenced scores, and relative advantages of ability scores, using data from studies of autism spectrum disorder and creatine transporter deficiency.

The aim of this study is to standardize Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) scores within a large sample to approximate an autism severity metric. Using a dataset of 1,415 individuals aged 2–16 years with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) or nonspectrum diagnoses, a subset of 1,807 assessments from 1,118 individuals with ASD were divided into narrow age and language cells. Within each cell, severity scores were based on percentiles of raw totals corresponding to each ADOS diagnostic classification. Calibrated severity scores had more uniform distributions across developmental groups and were less influenced by participant demographics than raw totals. This metric should be useful in comparing assessments across modules and time, and identifying trajectories of autism severity for clinical, genetic, and neurobiological research.

Describing the relative severity and change in autism symptoms is crucial for the appropriate characterization of clinical and research populations. The calibrated severity score (CSS) of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-2 (ADOS-2; Lord et al., 2012) was created to better describe autism symptom severity consistently across different ages and language levels. The CSS has been widely used to quantify and compare symptom severity on a 10-point scale across Modules; however, its test re-test reliability has not been studied. With 608 ADOS observations, we showed strong test re-test reliability of the CSS across all ADOS Modules. The results support the use of the ADOS CSS as a reliable tool to quantify autism symptom severity across development.

Research suggests that restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRBs) can be subdivided into Repetitive Sensory Motor (RSM) and Insistence on Sameness (IS) behaviors. However, because the majority of previous studies have used the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R), it is not clear whether these subcategories reflect the actual organization of RRBs in ASD. Using data from the Simons Simplex Collection (n = 1,825), we examined the association between scores on the ADI-R and the Repetitive Behavior Scale-Revised. Analyses supported the construct validity of RSM and IS subcategories. As in previous studies, IS behaviors showed no relationship with IQ. These findings support the continued use of RRB subcategories, particularly IS behaviors, as a means of creating more behaviorally homogeneous subgroups of children with ASD.

Background The use of remote online delivery of summative assessments has been underexplored in medical education. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all end of year applied knowledge multiple choice question (MCQ) tests at one UK medical school were switched from on campus to remote assessments. Methods We conducted an online survey of student experience with remote exam delivery and compared test performance in remote versus invigilated campus-based forms of similar assessments for Year 4 and 5 students across two academic years. Results Very few students experienced technical or practical problems in completing their exam remotely. Test anxiety was reduced for some students but increased for others. The majority of students preferred the traditional setting of invigilated exams in a computer lab, feeling this ensured an even playing field for all candidates. Mean score was higher for Year 4 students in the remotely-delivered versus campus-based form of the same exam (76.53% [SD 6.57] vs. 72.81% [6.64]; t 438.38  = 5.94, p  = 0.001; d  = 0.56), whereas candidate performance was equivalent across both forms for Year 5 students. Conclusions Remote online MCQ exam delivery is an effective and generally acceptable approach to summative assessment, and could be used again in future without detriment to students if onsite delivery is not possible.

The current study investigated the utility of the Brief Observation of Social Communication Change-Phrase Speech Young Fluent (BOSCC-PSYF) as an outcome measure of treatment response by analyzing the measure’s psychometric properties and initial validity. The BOSCC coding scheme was applied to 345 administrations from 160 participants diagnosed with autism. Participants included individuals of any age with phrase speech, or individuals under the age of 8 years with complex sentences. All were receiving behavioral intervention throughout the study. Test–retest and inter-rater reliability were good for the Early Communication and Social Reciprocity/Language domains, and fair for the Restricted and Repetitive Behavior domain. Significant changes occurred over time in the Early Communication and Social Reciprocity/Language domains, and Core Total scores. The BOSCC-PSYF may provide a low-cost, flexible, and user-friendly outcome measure that reliably measures changes in broad social communicative behaviors in a short period of time.

Purpose: There has been increased interest in using telepractice for involving more diverse children in research and clinical services, as well as when in-person assessment is challenging, such as during COVID-19. Little is known, however, about the feasibility, reliability, and validity of language samples when conducted via telepractice. Method: Child language samples from parent-child play were recorded either in person in the laboratory or via video chat at home, using parents' preferred commercially available software on their own device. Samples were transcribed and analyzed using Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts software. Analyses compared measures between-subjects for 46 dyads who completed video chat language samples versus 16 who completed in-person samples; within-subjects analyses were conducted for a subset of 13 dyads who completed both types. Groups did not differ significantly on child age, sex, or socioeconomic status. Results: The number of usable samples and percent of utterances with intelligible audio signal did not differ significantly for in-person versus video chat language samples. Child speech and language characteristics (including mean length of utterance, type-token ratio, number of different words, grammatical errors/omissions, and child speech intelligibility) did not differ significantly between in-person and video chat methods. This was the case for between-group analyses and within-child comparisons. Furthermore, transcription reliability (conducted on a subset of samples) was high and did not differ between in-person and video chat methods. Conclusions: This study demonstrates that child language samples collected via video chat are largely comparable to in-person samples in terms of key speech and language measures. Best practices for maximizing data quality for using video chat language samples are provided.