Developmental Profiles of Young Children Referred for Concern for Autism Spectrum Disorder: DBPNet Study.
Nancy Roizen, Sandra Friedman, Douglas Vanderbilt and 7 others
PMID 40120017WHAT IT FOUND
Cognitive function did not differ between children referred for autism concern who were later diagnosed with autism and those not diagnosed, but language and adaptive skills were lower in the diagnosed group.
Key findings
01Cognitive function did not differ between children diagnosed with ASD and children not diagnosed with ASD.
02Children diagnosed with ASD had lower language and adaptive function than children not diagnosed with ASD.
03Within the ASD group, cognitive function was above both language function and adaptive function.
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 children were assessed with different tests at different sites, not one uniform protocol. Not every child had all three domains assessed; complete data were available for 28.4% of the sample. Scores from different tests were converted into five categories, which can hide differences between the specific tests. The study reports diagnostic group differences at the time of assessment, not treatment effects.
Declared interests
The Health Resources and Services Administration funded the work. The supplied text does not report author conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the similar cognitive scores as evidence that children with autism and children without autism have the same overall developmental profile. The autism group had lower language and adaptive skills, and within that group cognitive scores were higher than language and adaptive scores.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →