Abstract
Two instruments for identifying autism in children and adolescents with intellectual abilities in the normal range were compared. Diagnostic tools consisted of the Autism Behavior Checklist (ABC) and the Autism Diagnostic Interview (ADI). The sample was composed of 18 children who were all diagnosed as having either infantile autism or infantile autism, residual state based on DSM-III criteria by a clinical team using observations, parental interviews, and interactions with the children. Only 4 of the children met diagnostic cutoffs for autism on the current ABC but all met criteria for diagnosis on the ABC using parental recall of the child's behavior at 3–5 years of age. The ADI had somewhat greater specificity in that 3 children did not meet criteria for diagnosis although 2 of these children also received ABC scores based on parental recollection that were in the borderline range.
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Preparation of this paper was supported by NINCDS grant NS 25243 and NICHD grant HD 176620 to the second author. Special thanks are extended to Robin L. Gilmore, Mike Espinosa, Margie Greenwald, Larry Epstein, Mary Louise Bland, and Alma Lopez for assistance in various stages of the project; to Robert Asarnow and Linda Bott for diagnosing the children using DSM-III criteria; and to Lindi Martinez and Cory Shulman for their help with the ADI. We appreciate the cooperation of the families who participated in the study.
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Yirmiya, N., Sigman, M. & Freeman, B.J. Comparison between diagnostic instruments for identifying high-functioning children with autism. J Autism Dev Disord 24, 281–291 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02172227
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02172227