Abstract
Purpose
Developmental assessment is part of a comprehensive autism evaluation. During in-person evaluations, developmental assessment is completed via direct testing by an examiner. In telehealth evaluations, developmental assessment relies on caregiver-report instruments. This study examined correspondence between caregiver report and direct testing of developmental skills.
Methods
Participants were 93 children, aged 18–42 months, undergoing evaluation for possible autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Caregivers were interviewed with the Developmental Profile, 4th edition (DP-4) via telehealth platform and children were tested in person 2–4 weeks later using the Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL).
Results
Correlations between the DP-4 and MSEL were high (ranging from 0.50 to 0.82) across standard scores, age equivalents, and functional categories, as well as across individual subtests and overall composite scores.
Conclusion
The high convergent validity found in this study suggests that the DP-4 provides a suitable proxy for direct developmental testing using the MSEL in the context of telehealth evaluations for ASD in young children, delivering a good estimate of both developmental functioning and presence of delays.
Trial Registration
Data were obtained from registered clinical trial NCT05047224, date of registration 2021-09-07.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the families for generous participation in these studies. We thank our partners at Far Northern Regional Center and Valley Mountain Regional Center (California) for referring participants. This project was supported by National Institute of Mental Health (R01 MH127228), the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (U54 HD08321; P50 HD103256). Support was also provided by the Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (VICTR) which is funded by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) Clinical Translational Science Award (CTSA) Program, Award Number 5UL1TR002243-03.
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All procedures involving human participants were performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the Institutional Review Boards of both universities. SO reports funding from National Institutes of Health and Autism Science Foundation, travel reimbursements and honoraria from Autism Speaks and Autism Science Foundation and book royalties from Guilford Press. ZW reports funding from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Defense, Health Resources and Service Administration, National Institutes of Health, and National Science Foundation. Other authors declare that they have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.
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Ozonoff, S., Gangi, D., Corona, L. et al. Measuring Developmental Delays: Comparison of Parent Report and Direct Testing. J Autism Dev Disord (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-024-06292-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-024-06292-8