Development of the Observation Schedule for Children with Autism-Anxiety, Behaviour and Parenting (OSCA-ABP): A New Measure of Child and Parenting Behavior for Use with Young Autistic Children.
Melanie Palmer, Juan Paris Perez, Joanne Tarver and 11 others
PMID 32350790WHAT IT FOUND
A new observation schedule reliably captured challenging behaviors and parenting responses in young autistic children, including those with minimal speech.
It showed that minimally verbal children displayed significantly more challenging behaviors per minute than verbal children, providing a standardized way to assess these difficulties directly.
Key findings
01The observation schedule demonstrated excellent inter-rater reliability for child behaviors that challenge, allowing different coders to consistently agree on the frequency of these behaviors.
02Minimally verbal children displayed significantly more behaviors that challenge per minute during the observation compared to verbal children, despite similar parent and teacher reports of overall emotional and behavioral problems.
03Observed child behaviors that challenge were significantly associated with teacher-reported irritability and hyperactivity in verbal children, and with parent-reported non-compliance in minimally verbal children, supporting the measure's validity.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Test-retest reliability was not assessed. The study did not evaluate the measure's sensitivity to change, which is crucial for monitoring progress in therapy. Some questionnaire measures used for validity checks were not specifically developed for autism or intellectual disability. The coding scheme may have missed autism-specific parenting strategies, such as environmental modifications, because the tasks were structured. The observation was conducted in a research setting, which may not fully reflect behavior in naturalistic environments like home or school.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume this measure is ready for routine clinical use to track progress. Sensitivity to change was not tested in this study, so it is currently validated for describing behavior at a single time point, not for measuring whether interventions are working.