Use of a teacher nomination strategy to screen for autism spectrum disorders in general education classrooms: a pilot study.
Given a rising prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASD), this project aimed to develop and pilot test various teacher nomination strategies to identify children at risk for ASD in a timely, reliable, cost-effective manner. Sixty participating elementary school teachers evaluated 1323 children in total. Each teacher nominated students who most fit a description of ASD-associated characteristics, and completed the Autism Syndrome Screening Questionnaire (ASSQ) on every child in the classroom. The proportion of overall agreement between teacher nomination and ASSQ was 93-95%, depending upon the nomination parameters. Nomination required 15 min per class versus 3.5-5.5 h per class for the ASSQ. These results support the need for further study of teacher nomination strategies to identify children at risk for ASD.
University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, CO, USA. susan.hepburn@uchsc.edu
Susan L
SL
Hepburn
Carolyn
C
DiGuiseppi
Steven
S
Rosenberg
Kristina
K
Kaparich
Cordelia
C
Robinson
Lisa
L
Miller
D000293:Adolescent; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003120:Colorado; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005178:Faculty; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening; D010865:Pilot Projects; D012017:Referral and Consultation; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires