Evidências de validade de critério do Inventário Dimensional de Avaliação do Desenvolvimento Infantil para rastreio do Transtorno do Espectro do Autismo.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by significant deficits in sociocommunicative skills and by the presence of restricted interests and repetitive and stereotyped behaviors. According to the DSM-5 criteria, the first symptoms can be observed before 36 months of age. Assessing child development milestones allows for a detailed and early observation of subtle behaviors and skills that may be impaired from the earliest months of life. The Inventário Dimensional de Avaliação do Desenvolvimento Infantil (IDADI) is an instrument for multidimensional assessment of children's development based on parental reporting and based on seven theoretical domains of abilities: Cognitive, Receptive and Expressive Communication and Language, Gross and Fine Motor Skills, Social-emotional e Adaptive Behavior. This study aims to investigate criterion validity evidences and sensitivity and specificity from IDADI comparing groups with and without ASD. Thirty-one mothers of children with ASD (26 boys, 83.9%) and 54 mothers of children without any kind of diagnosis (45 boys, 83.3%) took part in this study. Data related to age, child sex, mother’s schooling and family income have been paired between the two groups. In multivariate analysis of variance, the diagnosis presented a large effect size in the domains of Communication and Expressive Language (d =2,7), Receptive Language (d = 2,6), Adaptive Behavior (d =2,5), Social-emotional (d =2,2), Fine Motor Skills (d =1,7), Cognitive (d =1,6) and Gross Motor Skills (d = 1,5). Sensitivity and specificity indexes support the use of IDADI in the identification of children with suspected ASD in the relevant domains to the diagnosis. The preliminary validity evidences found in this study support the use of IDADI as an instrument for developmental assessment of children with ASD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]