Longitudinal follow-up of the development of social skills in patients with autism: a problem of reliability of the parental report in a telephone interview

Česká verzia

Authors: G. Kratochvíl Vaněčková; M. Hrdlička
Authors place of work: Dětská psychiatrická klinika 2. LF UK a FN Motol, Praha
Published in the journal: Čes-slov Pediat 2019; 74 (4): 197-204.
Category:

Summary

Objective: Factors influencing social development of autistic children have not been sufficiently studied yet. The aim of the study was to evaluate the longitudinal social development of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and to verify the hypothesis of latent social skills in autistic children on longitudinal data.

Methods: The study was designed as a follow-up. All but two exceptions of these follow-up contacts were performed by a phone call. The sample comprised of 47 autistic children (40 boys and 7 girls) with a mean age of 10.0±2.5 years (range 5.0–15.8 years). The average follow-up interval was 4.1 years from the first examination. The social domain of the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R) was used as an assessment tool. The sample was further subdivided according to the response to ADI-R Item No. 59 „Secure Base“ to: (i) those with a normal response, i.e., score 0 (n=20); and (ii) those with an abnormal response, including the original untransformed scores of 1, 2, and 3 (n=27). From the original research at baseline, parental reports´ reliability scores from ADI-R raters, who were able to compare the parental report with their own knowledge of the child, were available. A school grading scale of 1–5 was used for the assessment, provided that the highest reliability was achieved by parents with grade 1.

Results: The decrease in the ADI-R social domain score during follow-up (i.e., compared to baseline) was significantly different between children with normal and abnormal response to the ADI-R item 59 (0.85 vs 5.26; p=0.046). However, if only reliable parental statements were included (grades 1–3), then the difference substantially changed and lost its statistical significance (2.57 vs 5.56; p=0.263).

Conclusions: Our results have not confirmed the hypothesis of latent social skills indicating that autistic children aged 4–5 year with a presence of separation anxiety, would later achieve better results in their social skills. On the contrary, the results pointed at the factor of reliability of parental reports that has not been explored yet. This factor, if uncorrected, can significantly influence the results of telephone interviews..

Keywords:

childhood autism – latent social skills – ADI-R – telephone interview – longitudinal follow-up – reliability of parental report

Zdroje

1. Holmes J, Lawson D, Langley K, et al. The child attention deficit hyperactivity disorder teacher telephone interview (CHATT). Br J Psychiatry 2004; 184: 74–78.

2. Robins DL, Fein D, Barton ML, Green A. The Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers: an initial study investigating the early detection of autism and pervasive developmental disorders. J Autism Dev Disord 2001; 31: 131–144.

3. Kleinman JM, Robins DL, Ventola PE, et al. The Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers: a follow-up study investigating the early detection of autism spectrum disorders. J Autism Dev Disord 2008; 38: 827–839.

4. Sturner R, Howard B, Bergmann P, et al. Autism screening with online decision support by primary care pediatricians aided by M-CHA/F. Pediatrics 2016; 138 (3): e20153036.

5. Vrancic D, Nanclares V, Soares D, et al. Sensitivity and specificity of the Autism diagnostic inventory-telephone screening in Spanish. J Autism Dev Disord 2002; 32 (4): 313–320.

6. Ward-King J, Cohen IL, Penning H, Holden JAJ. Brief report: Telephone administration of the autism diagnostic interview-revised: reliability and suitability for use in research. J Autism Dev Disord 2010; 40: 1285–1290.

7. Bishop SL, Huerta M, Gotham K, et al. The Autism Symptom Interview, School-Age: A brief telephone interview to identify autism spectrum disorders in 5-to-12-year-old children. Autism Res 2017; 10: 78–88.

8. Hansson SL, Röjvall AS, Rastam M, et al. Psychiatric telephone interview with parents for screening of childhood autism- tics, attention- deficit hyperactivity disorder and other comorbidities (A-TAC). Br J Psychiatry 2005; 187: 262–267.

9. Larson T, Anckarsäter H, Gillberg C, et al. The Autism- Tics, AD/HD and other Comorbidities inventory (A-TAC): further validation of a telephone interview for epidemiological research. BMC Psychiatry 2010, 10: 1.

10. Larson T, Selinus EN, Gumpert CH, et al. Reliability of Autism- Tics, AD/HD and other Comorbidities (A-TAC) inventory in a test-retest design. Psychological Reports: Measures & Statistics 2014; 114: 93–103.

11. Hrdlička M, Urbánek T, Vacová M, et al. Some children with autism have latent social skills that can be tested. Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat 2017; 13: 827–833.

12. Andari E, Duhamel JR, Zalla T, et al. Promoting social behavior with oxytocin in high-functioning autism spectrum disorders. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2010; 107 (9): 4389–4394.

13. Hrdlička M, Vacová M, Ošlejšková H, et al. Age at diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders: Is there an association with socioeconomic status and family self-education about autism? Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat 2016; 12: 1639–1644.

14. Lord C, Rutter M, LeCouteur A. Autism diagnostic interview – revised: a revised version of a diagnostic interview for caregivers of individuals with possible pervasive developmental disorders. J Autism Dev Disord 1994; 24: 659–685.

15. Dudová I, Hrdlička M. Použití nástrojů ADI-R a ADOS v diagnostice poruch autistického spektra. Čs Psychol 2013; 57 (5): 488–495.

16. Bitsika V, Sharpley CF. The interaction of matrix reasoning and social motivation as predictors of separation anxiety in boys with autism spectrum disorder. Int J Dev Neurosci 2018; 67: 6–13.

17. Guy A, Seaton SE, Boyle EM, et al. Infants born late/moderately preterm are at risk for a positive autism screen at 2 years of age. J Pediatr 2015; 166: 269–275.

18. Dudova I, Markova D, Kasparova M, et al. Comparison of three screening tests for autism in preterm children with birth weights less than 1500 grams. Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat 2014; 10: 2201–2208.