title: Pre-linguistic Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule adapted for older individuals with severe to profound mental retardation: a pilot study.
abstract: The Autism Diagnostic Observational Schedule (ADOS) is a semi-structured observational scale developed to assess social interaction, communication and play in individuals who are suspected to have autism. Since the ADOS is not suitable to be used with severely or profoundly mentally retarded adolescents and adults with very limited language skills, materials and some of the tasks of the PL-ADOS and the original ADOS (the former versions of the current ADOS) were adapted. Results indicated that almost all of the overall ratings showed good reliability and discriminative diagnostic validity. Furthermore, the combination of codings into an overall algorithm score on social/communicative behavior resulted in a sensitivity of .82 and a specificity of .85 when using a cut-off score of 15.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. sibel@metu.edu.tr
authors.forename: Sibel Kazak
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Berument
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Starr
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pickles
authors.forename: Megan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tomlins
authors.forename: Katerina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Papanikolauou
authors.forename: Catherine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lord
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rutter
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004314:Down Syndrome / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D008607:Intellectual Disability / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015588:Observer Variation; D010865:Pilot Projects; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014705:Verbal Behavior