Autism is a disorder that is defined behaviorally, for which no dominant etiology or neurobiological marker has yet been identified. Research has been constrained by the need for reliable and standard diagnostic formulations of autism to ensure comparability of populations. The diagnosis of autism is made complicated by a number of factors. Autism occurs across a range of intellectual levels from severe mental retardation to above average intelligence. Autism is a spectrum disorder. Genetic studies indicate that what is transmitted may be a familial risk for communication, social, and perhaps personality disorders. In addition, because the primary features of autism involved social and communicative deficits, the contexts in which these behaviors are observed are very important. What the examiner does with the child or adult affects the subject's behavior and the examiner's judgments. Assessments standardized both in what aspect of the subject's behavior is scored and what the examiner does (or asks an informant about) are much needed. There is clearly a trade-off between standardized approaches and the need for clinical flexibility in dealing with a population that may range from one extreme to the other in IQ and age. A week-long training workshop provides hands-on training to researchers in the use of two instruments for the diagnosis of autism: The Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R; Lord, Rutter & Le Couteur, 1994), a semi-structured investigator-based parent interview, and the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-Generic (ADOS-G), a recently reorganized combination of the ADOS (Lord, Rutter, Good, Mawhood, Heemsbergen & Jordan, 1989), an observational protocol for social and communicative behavior, and the Pre-Linguistic Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (PL-ADOS: DiLavore, Lord & Rutter, 1995), an observational protocol comparable to the ADOS but designed for use with young, non-verbal children. The goal of the workshop is for participants to attain familiarity with the instruments and to provide a general knowledge of issues in research diagnoses of autism spectrum disorders.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Education Projects (R25)
Project #
5R25MH057167-06
Application #
2675646
Study Section
Child Psychopathology and Treatment Review Committee (CPT)
Program Officer
Hann, Della M
Project Start
1992-09-01
Project End
2000-08-31
Budget Start
1998-09-01
Budget End
1999-08-31
Support Year
6
Fiscal Year
1998
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Chicago
Department
Psychiatry
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
225410919
City
Chicago
State
IL
Country
United States
Zip Code
60637
Gotham, Katherine; Unruh, Kathryn; Lord, Catherine (2015) Depression and its measurement in verbal adolescents and adults with autism spectrum disorder. Autism 19:491-504
Gotham, Katherine; Brunwasser, Steven M; Lord, Catherine (2015) Depressive and anxiety symptom trajectories from school age through young adulthood in samples with autism spectrum disorder and developmental delay. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 54:369-76.e3
Kim, So Hyun; Lord, Catherine (2012) Combining information from multiple sources for the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders for toddlers and young preschoolers from 12 to 47 months of age. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 53:143-51
Kim, So Hyun; Lord, Catherine (2012) New autism diagnostic interview-revised algorithms for toddlers and young preschoolers from 12 to 47 months of age. J Autism Dev Disord 42:82-93
Luyster, Rhiannon; Lord, Catherine (2009) Word learning in children with autism spectrum disorders. Dev Psychol 45:1774-86
Luyster, Rhiannon; Gotham, Katherine; Guthrie, Whitney et al. (2009) The Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-toddler module: a new module of a standardized diagnostic measure for autism spectrum disorders. J Autism Dev Disord 39:1305-20
Anderson, Deborah K; Oti, Rosalind S; Lord, Catherine et al. (2009) Patterns of growth in adaptive social abilities among children with autism spectrum disorders. J Abnorm Child Psychol 37:1019-34
Luyster, Rhiannon; Lopez, Kristina; Lord, Catherine (2007) Characterizing communicative development in children referred for autism spectrum disorders using the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI). J Child Lang 34:623-54
Luyster, Rhiannon; Qiu, Shanping; Lopez, Kristina et al. (2007) Predicting outcomes of children referred for autism using the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory. J Speech Lang Hear Res 50:667-81
Anderson, Deborah K; Lord, Catherine; Risi, Susan et al. (2007) Patterns of growth in verbal abilities among children with autism spectrum disorder. J Consult Clin Psychol 75:594-604

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