[The Marburg Rating Scale for Asperger's Syndrome (MBAS)--a screening instrument for high-functioning autistic disorders].
OBJECTIVE
Asperger's Syndrome is a disorder of uncertain nosological validity, which is difficult to differentiate from high-functioning autism. Even today these disorders are unfortunately diagnosed very late, often in the wake of earlier, different diagnoses. The purpose of this study is to present a screening instrument (MBAS), which is sensitive to these disorders.


METHODS
The instrument was tested among a total of 91 probands (44 of whom had been diagnosed as autistic, and 47 of whom had been diagnosed with a non-autistic disorder).


RESULTS
The items on the MBAS were of average difficulty; generally, the all item-total correlation was good. The total scale has an internal consistency of Cronbach's alpha = .91 and the convergent validity of the MBAS and the ADI-R reached r = .61 (p = .001). The total score of the questionnaire discriminated highly significantly between the group with autism and that without. At a sensitivity of 95.5% and a specificity of 95.7% the number of misclassifications is low. False negative classifications occurred only in the case of very young children.


CONCLUSIONS
The MBAS is a reliable and valid instrument for screening and generating tentative diagnoses of high-functioning autism. The questionnaire is well suited for the selection and generation of tentative diagnoses of autism on a high-functioning level.
Kamp-Becker
Inge
I
Klinik für Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie und -psychotherapie der Philipps-Universität Marburg. kampbeck@med.uni-marburg.de
Mattejat
Fritz
F
Wolf-Ostermann
Karin
K
Remschmidt
Helmut
H
D000293:Adolescent; D020817:Asperger Syndrome / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis*; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis*; D002648:Child; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D008297:Male; D010552:Personality Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results