Abstract
Describing the relative severity and change in autism symptoms is crucial for the appropriate characterization of clinical and research populations. The calibrated severity score (CSS) of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-2 (ADOS-2; Lord et al., 2012) was created to better describe autism symptom severity consistently across different ages and language levels. The CSS has been widely used to quantify and compare symptom severity on a 10-point scale across Modules; however, its test re-test reliability has not been studied. With 608 ADOS observations, we showed strong test re-test reliability of the CSS across all ADOS Modules. The results support the use of the ADOS CSS as a reliable tool to quantify autism symptom severity across development.
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank the children, adults, and families who participated in the study. The authors also thank Shanping Qiu, MA, of Weill Cornell Medicine, for her help with analyses and data management. The authors would like to acknowledge the research participation of the families who contributed their time to this research project
Funding
This study was funded by NIMH (1R01MH114925-01 awarded to S.H.K.; R01MH066496 awarded to C.L.,) and NICHD (5R01HD081199-06 awarded to C.L.). Findings from this publication were presented in a poster symposium at the International Society for Autism Research in May of 2019.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation and data were performed by CL and SHK. Data analyses were carried out by SHK, YBC, DJ and CK. All authors drafted, reviewed, and approved the final manuscript.
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Dr. Lord has received royalties from Western Psychological Services for publication of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS). Dr. Kim and Mss. Klein, Choi and Janvier report no biomedical financial interests or potential conflicts of interest.
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This study involving human participants was in accordance with the ethical standards of respective institutional research committees. The Human Investigation Committee (IRB) of University of Michigan and Weill Cornell Medical College approved this study.
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Participants whose data was included in this study consented to the inclusion of their data in our research repository for retrospective chat review. This project was approved by both IRB Committees at the University of Michigan and Weill Cornell Medical College.
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Janvier, D., Choi, Y.B., Klein, C. et al. Brief Report: Examining Test-Retest Reliability of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS-2) Calibrated Severity Scores (CSS). J Autism Dev Disord 52, 1388–1394 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-021-04952-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-021-04952-7