Detailed contribution information
| Contribution title | 2667 - Assessing symptoms during comprehensive interventions for young children with autism spectrum disorder: Development, preliminary analysis and clinical use of the Autism Behaviour Coding System (ABCS). |
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| Contribution code | PS01-16 (P) |
| Authors | |
| Form of presentation | Poster |
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| Abstract |
Objective: One of the main goals of comprehensive early interventions in ASD is the improvement of communication and interaction skills. Evaluation instruments to assess changes in these crucial behaviours are therefore of high interest. Observational coding has been successfully used in the past (Vismara et al., 2010). One of the major advantages of this method is the objectivity of the outcome (Hawes et al., 2013). The aim of this poster is to present the Autism Behaviour Coding System, video-based observational instrument for assessing core autism symptoms during intensive early interventions in autism spectrum disorder. Method: The ABCS (Dima et al., 2016) contains two child related behavioural domains: social interaction and repetitive behaviours. Video recordings of child-therapist interactions during the `Frühintervention bei autistischen Störungen` (FIAS) were coded by independent raters who were blinded to intervention status. The inter-rater reliability was calculated using intra-class correlation (ICCs). MANOVA (RM) was used to analyse the sensitivity of the ABCS to intervention related change and results were compared to results of a validated external measure of level of functioning (DD-C-GAS) in a sample of 15 children who received intensive treatment. Results: Inter-rater reliability was high for six out of seven behavioural variables in the context of functional play. ICCs ranged from 0.82 to 0.99 (M=0.88). IRR was also high for the variables in the context of symbolic play. ICCs ranged from 0.86 to 0.99 (M=0.90). In the lunch situation three out of five variables had ICCs between 0.95 and 0.98, representing very good IRR. Two variables with lower IRR had ICC values between 0.67 and 0.68. ABCS and DD-C-GAS results indicated improvement in core autistic symptoms and level of functioning domains after intensive intervention. Conclusion: The ABCS shows good to excellent agreement and sensitivity to interventions-related changes. According to this study the ABCS may be useful as an objective method of assessing the proximal effects of therapy in young children with ASD. |