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Brief Report: Developmental Trajectories of Adaptive Behavior in Children and Adolescents with ASD

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Abstract

Research suggests that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have significant difficulties with adaptive behavior skills including daily living and functional communication skills. Few studies have examined the developmental trajectory of adaptive behavior across childhood and adolescence. The present study examined longitudinal trajectories of adaptive behavior in a community-based clinic sample of 186 individuals with ASD. The overall pattern indicated an initial increase in adaptive behavior during early childhood followed by a plateau in skills during adolescence for individuals of all IQ groups. Given the importance of adaptive behavior for employment and quality of life, this study emphasizes the importance of targeting adaptive behavior during adolescence to insure continued gains.

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Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Notes

  1. There were also missing values for adaptive behavior age equivalence and mental age, and so in order to impute IQ imputation models were also specified for these variables. Note Imputed values for missing adaptive behavior or mental age were only included to estimate missing IQ. Final analyses examining adaptive behavior only included observed values.

  2. The 95% confidence intervals were calculated using the following formula \({\{ x \times {\text{beta}} - /+1.96\; \times {\text{SE}}(x \times {\text{beta}})\} ^2}\); where x is the specified IQ category and specified chronological age, and beta is the vector of estimated coefficients from the model (see Supplementary Material for parameter estimates). To place confidence intervals on the original scale (i.e., years), confidence intervals derived from the above formula were back-transformed by taking the inverse-log.

  3. aIQ after the age of 6 was not observed for 22 participants. A subsequent analysis with only observed IQ scores (i.e., no imputation) was conducted. This analysis indicated a similar and significant quadratic effect for each ID group as reported in the results section (see Supplementary Material for details).

    bThe notation “exp(k)” indicates ek, where “e” is a mathematical constant \(\left( {e.g.,\exp \left( {{{\hat {\beta }}_0}} \right)={e^{{{\hat {\beta }}_0}}}} \right)\). In other words, exp() is the inverse of the natural log function (ln()).

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Acknowledgments

This manuscript was completed with support from Foundations of Hope and Autism Speaks. The authors would like to thank all participants and the TEACCH Autism Program. Last, we would like to acknowledge the foresight of Dr. Eric Schopler and Dr. Gary Mesibov to create a database of clinical assessment records in the early days of TEACCH that allowed for this important longitudinal research.

Funding

This study was funded by the Foundations of Hope and Autism Speaks (8316).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Allison T. Meyer

    Present address: JFK Partners, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Education 2 South, 13121 E. 17th Ave., Aurora, CO, 80045, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, CB 7180, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599-7180, USA

    Allison T. Meyer

  2. School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 654 Cherry Street NW, Atlanta, GA, 30332-0170, USA

    Patrick S. Powell

  3. Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA

    Nicole Butera

  4. Department of Allied Health Sciences, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Mark R. Klinger

  5. TEACCH Autism Program, Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Laura G. Klinger

Authors
  1. Allison T. Meyer
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  2. Patrick S. Powell
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  3. Nicole Butera
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  4. Mark R. Klinger
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Contributions

ATM and PSP conceived of the study, completed data entry, conducted preliminary analyses, and drafted the manuscript. NB completed developmental trajectory analyses with support from PSP. LK participated in the design and provided suggestions during manuscript preparation; MK participated in the design of the study, provided advice on statistical analyses and provided suggestions during manuscript preparation.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Allison T. Meyer.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors. This study was approved by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Institutional Review Board for archival medical records review.

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Meyer, A.T., Powell, P.S., Butera, N. et al. Brief Report: Developmental Trajectories of Adaptive Behavior in Children and Adolescents with ASD. J Autism Dev Disord 48, 2870–2878 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-018-3538-5

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