PTOTSLPOtherJournal of autism and developmental disorders2025

Development of a Self-Report Measure of Prediction in Daily Life: The Prediction-Related Experiences Questionnaire.

Amanda M O'Brien, Toni A May, Kristin L K Koskey and 10 others

PMID 38713266

WHAT IT FOUND

Autistic adults reported greater difficulty predicting daily events than non-autistic adults, and these self-reports matched their performance on rhythm tasks.

A new 19-item questionnaire captures these prediction challenges across social, sensory, and motor domains.

Key findings

01Autistic adults scored significantly lower on the questionnaire than non-autistic adults, indicating greater self-reported prediction difficulties.

02Self-reported prediction scores correlated with actual performance on tapping tasks, where less precise tapping was associated with lower self-reported prediction skills.

03Social prediction items were consistently harder for participants to endorse than motor or sensory items.

STILL TO COME

How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs

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What it does not show

The questionnaire is not yet validated for tracking changes over time or for using sub-scores for specific domains like social or motor separately. The study did not collect data on race or ethnicity, so it is unclear if the results apply to diverse populations. The expert panel that designed the items was largely from one institution and invested in the theory that prediction is a key deficit in autism, which may have influenced the wording of the questions. Self-report scores may be influenced by executive functioning or working memory, which were not measured.

Declared interests

The study was funded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The authors included researchers from the same institution who developed the theoretical framework being tested.

The easy way to misread this

Do not use this questionnaire to diagnose autism or to track progress in therapy. It is not validated for these purposes, and the authors explicitly state it is not sensitive to change over time.

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