In-home Tele-assessment for Autism in Toddlers: Validity, Reliability, and Caregiver Satisfaction with the TELE-ASD-PEDS.
Devon N Gangi, Laura Corona, Liliana Wagner and 3 others
PMID 40526421WHAT IT FOUND
Toddlers' autism evaluations done over video from home matched in-person results for 94% of children, and 92% could be given a diagnostic decision from the video visit alone.
Caregivers were satisfied and few had technology problems.
Key findings
01Autism diagnosis from the in-home video assessment agreed with in-person testing using the ADOS-2 for 94% of cases (kappa 0.82), and agreed between two video assessments for 94% of cases (kappa 0.84).
02A diagnostic decision was reached from the first video visit alone for 92% of cases (167 children). The 10 children (6%) whose classification changed at the second visit were split evenly between a video and an in-person second visit.
03Caregivers found the video assessment workable: 6% reported any technology problem, all said the technology was easy to use and the instructions easy to follow, and 92% would not change anything about the visit.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
This is an interim analysis of an ongoing trial. The 6-month follow-up asking whether families could actually get into services afterwards is not reported here, so the study says nothing about what happens to children after the diagnosis. Families were recruited in only two states, so the results may not hold elsewhere. Every family in the study had a device with a camera and working internet, and all had enough English to complete the assessments. No family was turned away for lack of equipment here, but families without reliable internet, a private space or English may not be represented. The results describe immediate impressions only. Nothing is reported about how families felt weeks or months later. The examiners were master's or doctoral level clinicians with extensive experience in autism assessment, specifically trained by the tool's developers and recalibrated across sites. That level of training and monitoring may not match routine community practice. The second visit was scored by an examiner who then discussed any disagreement with the first examiner and reached a consensus with the family, so the final study outcome is not entirely independent of the first assessment. For 15 children no decision was possible at the first video visit, and 3 of those needed a further appointment before a diagnosis could be settled.
Declared interests
No funding statement or conflict-of-interest declaration is included in the text supplied, so it is not possible to say who paid for the study or what the authors declared.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the 94% agreement as proof that a video visit can replace in-person assessment for any child. Fifteen children could not be classified from the first video visit and three of them needed a further appointment, the first visit combined the TAP with a caregiver questionnaire and a clinical interview rather than the TAP on its own, and the examiners were autism specialists specifically trained and calibrated on this tool.
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 →