Measuring Developmental Delays: Comparison of Parent Report and Direct Testing

期刊论文
发表日期：

2024年2月26日

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Sally Ozonoff,
Devon Gangi,
Laura Corona,
Tori Foster,
Monique Moore Hill,
Makayla Honaker,
Shyeena Maqbool,
Rachel Ni,
Amy Nicholson,
Chandni Parikh,
Caitlin Stone,
Anna Kathleen Spitler,
Amy Swanson,
Alison Vehorn,
Liliana Wagner,
Amy Weitlauf,
Zachary Warren

摘要

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.