Bias in measurement of autism symptoms by spoken language level and non-verbal mental age in minimally verbal children with neurodevelopmental disorders.

ABSTRACT: Increasing numbers of children with known genetic conditions and/or intellectual disability are referred for evaluation of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), highlighting the need to refine autism symptom measures to facilitate differential diagnoses in children with cognitive and language impairments. Previous studies have reported decreased specificity of ASD screening and diagnostic measures in children with intellectual disability. However, little is known about how cognitive and language abilities impact the measurement of specific ASD symptoms in this group. We aggregated a large sample of young children (N = 1196; aged 31-119 months) to examine measurement invariance of ASD symptoms among minimally verbal children within the context of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS)

SUBMITTER: Zheng S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9372407 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature