Development of the Behavioral Inflexibility Scale for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Other Developmental Disabilities.
Luc Lecavalier, James Bodfish, Clare Harrop and 5 others
PMID 31904198WHAT IT FOUND
A new parent-rated scale measures how much a child's rigidity disrupts daily family life, not just the behavior itself.
It is reliable and stable over time, helping therapists identify which children need intervention for inflexibility and track if that help works.
Key findings
01The Behavioral Inflexibility Scale is a 38-item parent-rated tool that measures the severity and functional impact of rigid behaviors in children with autism.
02The scale shows high internal consistency and stability over time, making it suitable for detecting changes in a child's condition.
03Scores on the scale correlate strongly with measures of insistence on sameness but less so with repetitive motor behaviors like hand-flapping.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study used an online convenience sample, so diagnoses were parent-reported and not confirmed by clinical assessment. The sample did not include children younger than 3 years, so the scale's utility for early intervention is unknown. All measures were parent-reported, which means correlations between the BIS and other scales might be inflated by shared method variance. The study did not test the scale's sensitivity to change over time in response to treatment, only its stability without intervention. The sample had fewer females than males, so findings related to sex differences are preliminary.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The work was funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume this scale has been proven to track treatment progress. The study showed the scale is stable over two weeks without intervention, but it did not test if scores change when a child receives therapy.