Functioning and disability in autism spectrum disorder: A worldwide survey of experts.
Elles de Schipper, Soheil Mahdi, Petrus de Vries and 9 others
PMID 26749373WHAT IT FOUND
Experts worldwide most often named brain structure, voluntary movement control and higher cognitive functions as central to ASD functioning.
They also reported strengths and gender differences. This survey informs assessment categories, not tested interventions.
Key findings
01A list of 103 candidate ICF-CY categories, each identified in at least 5% of responses, was generated from 225 expert responses.
02Brain structure was the most frequent category, mentioned by 87% of experts, and control of voluntary movement functions was mentioned by 69%.
03Experts reported strengths in 92% of responses and gender differences in 60%, but these answers were too heterogeneous to link to ICF-CY categories.
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 study reports expert opinions, not patient outcomes or intervention effects. Experts were required to be fluent in English, which may have excluded some regions and professions. Some professions were represented by very few experts in certain regions, so the category list may reflect the surveyed group. The written survey may have been ambiguous; some experts said they were unsure what a question meant or may have misinterpreted it. A few experts could not submit because of technical file problems. The strengths and gender-difference answers were too heterogeneous to link to ICF-CY categories. The categories are candidate categories for a future consensus process, not a final ICF Core Set for ASD.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts related to this work. The supplied text does not state who funded the work. Some listed unrelated interests: de Vries has served on steering, advisory or working groups for Tuber Sclerosis Complex studies funded or part-funded by Novartis; Holtmann has had advisory or consultancy roles and speaking support from several pharmaceutical companies; Zwaigenbaum received grant funding from SynaptDx; Bölte has acted as consultant or lecturer for several companies and receives publisher royalties.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the frequent ICF-CY categories as a validated assessment tool or proof that an intervention works. They are expert-reported candidate categories from a survey used to prepare a future consensus conference.