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Concurrent Validity of the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT): Socio-cognitive and Verbal Skills in 18-Month-Old Infants

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Abstract

The Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT) is a screening questionnaire for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Previous findings have confirmed the M-CHAT’s sensitivity and specificity across several cultures, yet few studies have considered M-CHAT scores as a distributed trait in a sample of typical infants. The current study examined how the M-CHAT predicts concurrent word learning (experiment 1) as well as socio-emotional understanding (experiment 2) in 18-month-old infants. Results demonstrated that the number of items endorsed on the M-CHAT negatively correlated with the proportion of trials on which infants looked at a toy named by the experimenter as well as performance on the word learning task. In experiment 2, high scores on the M-CHAT correlated with less instrumental helping, less imitation, and a smaller productive vocabulary size.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a SSHRC insight grant (435-2017-0564) awarded to Dr. Diane Poulin-Dubois. The authors would like to extend a special thank you to Catherine Delisle and Jessy Burdman-Villa for their contribution to data organization.

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  1. Department of Psychology, Concordia University, Montreal, QC, H4B 1R6, Canada

    Alexa Ruel, Sabrina S. Chiarella, Cristina Crivello & Diane Poulin-Dubois

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  1. Alexa Ruel
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  2. Sabrina S. Chiarella
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Contributions

C.C, S.S.C and D.P.D collected and analysed all data in the original publications. A.R and D.P.D designed the current study. A.R. ran all analyses and wrote the current manuscript with D.P.D. All authors discussed the results and contributed to the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Diane Poulin-Dubois.

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Ruel, A., Chiarella, S.S., Crivello, C. et al. Concurrent Validity of the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT): Socio-cognitive and Verbal Skills in 18-Month-Old Infants. J Autism Dev Disord 51, 933–949 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04379-6

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