Anxiety often co-occurs with autism spectrum disorder, yet there are few valid and reliable instruments for measuring anxiety in youth with autism spectrum disorder. This article describes the modification of the Pediatric Anxiety Rating Scale for youth with autism spectrum disorder and systematic psychometric evaluation in a well-characterized…

Standardized Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) scores provide a measure of autism severity that is less influenced by child characteristics than raw totals (Gotham et al. in "Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders," 39(5), 693-705 2009). However, these scores combine symptoms from the Social Affect (SA) and Restricted…

This study presents construct validity for a novel automated morphometric and kinematic handwriting assessment, including (1) convergent validity, establishing reliability of automated measures with traditional manual-derived Minnesota Handwriting Assessment (MHA), and (2) discriminant validity, establishing that the automated methods distinguish…

This study investigated the psychometric properties of the Child and Family Quality of Life scale, a measure of psychosocial quality of life in those with autism and related developmental disorders. Parents of 212 children suspected of autism spectrum disorder completed the Child and Family Quality of Life prior to a diagnostic evaluation. Results…

The Social Attribution Task, Multiple Choice is introduced as a measure of implicit social cognitive ability in children, addressing a key challenge in quantification of social cognitive function in autism spectrum disorder, whereby individuals can often be successful in explicit social scenarios, despite marked social adaptive deficits. The…

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the use of the iPod Touch™ as a Speech Generated Device (SGD) for Functional Communication Training (FCT). The evaluation of the effects on problem behavior, the effects on generalization and maintenance of the acquired communication repertoire, and the social initiations of peers between the new SGD (iPod…

The goals of our study were to (a) compare agreement between autism spectrum disorder diagnosis and outcome of the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers and Parents Evaluation of Developmental Status in a sample of toddlers and (b) examine specific concerns noted for toddlers who screened negative on the Modified Checklist for Autism in…

Youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often present with emotional problems such as anxiety and depression (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). A recent study of the "Child Behavior Checklist 6-18" (CBCL; Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001) indicated good sensitivity but relatively low specificity for identifying emotional problems…

The psychometric properties of the Pediatric Anxiety Rating Scale (PARS), a clinician-administered measure for assessing severity of anxiety symptoms, were examined in 72 children and adolescents diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The internal consistency of the PARS was 0.59, suggesting that the items were related but not…