An Initial Psychometric Evaluation of the Joint Attention Protocol.
Sallie W Nowell, Linda R Watson, Richard A Faldowski and 1 others
PMID 29307041WHAT IT FOUND
The JA Protocol produces pass/fail scores for children's joint attention responses and initiations.
It appears consistent across coders and repeat testing, but it is not a diagnostic tool and has not been tested for tracking therapy progress.
Key findings
01In Sample 1, the JA Protocol had excellent internal consistency, with Cronbach's alpha .91, and subscale alphas of .86 for initiation and .90 for response.
02In Sample 2, test-retest agreement about two weeks later was .80 for response and .83 for initiation, which the authors describe as good.
03The JA Protocol separated children with ASD from children without ASD with 85% accuracy in toddlers and preschoolers and 74% across the whole sample, but the authors state it is not intended for diagnosis or educational placement.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The children with ASD had severe developmental and language delays, so the results may not apply to children with ASD who have typical or mildly delayed language. The samples were not nationally representative and had limited racial, geographic, and socioeconomic diversity. The measure was not evaluated in a clinical practice setting. There is no direct evidence that the JA Protocol can track change over time after intervention. Pass/fail scoring does not provide information about the quality of joint attention behaviors. Coders were aware of the children's diagnoses. Sample 2 had 19 boys, so the test-retest result rests on a male-only group of that size.
Declared interests
Two authors have intellectual property rights related to the JA Protocol as authors. The authors declare no financial conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat the 85% and 74% discrimination rates as proof that the JA Protocol can diagnose ASD. The authors state it is not intended for diagnostic or educational placement, and they did not evaluate cut-off scores, sensitivity, or specificity.