Centering the Inner Experience of Autism: Development of the Self-Assessment of Autistic Traits.
Allison B Ratto, Julia Bascom, Sharon daVanport and 17 others
PMID 36941856WHAT IT FOUND
Autistic-led researchers built a 58-item self-report questionnaire for people aged 16 and older.
It asks about sensory, communication, routine, daily-life, and discrimination experiences in autistic people's own words. It is not yet tested as a clinical tool.
Key findings
01An autistic-led team developed a self-report questionnaire for people 16 years old through adulthood, called the SAAT.
02The final item pool had 58 items and a five-domain framework, including Negative Community Context.
03This paper reports only the development process; future work will report preliminary testing of the questionnaire.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
This paper reports only the development process; it did not test the questionnaire with nonexpert autistic people or report preliminary psychometrics. The expert panel was small: 20 autistic experts completed the first round and 19 completed the second round. The authors state the panel underrepresented autistic people with intellectual disability, BIPoC autistic people, autistic people with high support needs, and nonspeaking autistic people. The initial internet writings used for themes appeared predominantly White. Only five autistic adolescents were invited to complete cognitive interviews. The core research team was primarily composed of White cisgender women. The core team made final decisions that at times were not based on panel consensus.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that the SAAT is a validated autism diagnostic questionnaire. The authors state this work focuses solely on development, and preliminary testing is left for future work.