Predicting social and communicative ability in school-age children with autism spectrum disorder: A pilot study of the Social Attribution Task, Multiple Choice.
Rebecca Burger-Caplan, Celine Saulnier, Warren Jones and 1 others
PMID 27121244WHAT IT FOUND
Children with autism scored lower than typical peers on a brief social reasoning test.
The test predicted real-life social and communication skills, but not daily living skills, and was not influenced by verbal IQ. This small pilot suggests it may help quantify social ability.
Key findings
01Children with ASD scored significantly lower on the SAT-MC (mean 10.2) than typical controls (mean 13.6).
02SAT-MC scores correlated with Vineland Socialization and Communication scores but not with Daily Living Skills.
03SAT-MC performance was associated with age but not with Verbal IQ.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The sample size was small, particularly for children with ASD. The control group was not assessed for adaptive functioning or subclinical symptoms. The study did not include children with other conditions, so it is unclear if the SAT-MC specifically distinguishes ASD from other disorders. The tool may not be suitable for very young children or those with significant language delays. The optimization of the test (selecting the best 9 items) was based on the same small dataset used to validate it, which risks overestimating its accuracy.
Declared interests
The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health (N.I.H.). No specific commercial conflicts of interest were declared in the text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume the SAT-MC is a ready-to-use diagnostic tool. This was a small pilot study, and the 'optimized' 9-item version was derived from the same data used to test it, which can exaggerate its effectiveness. The test has not been validated against other clinical populations or in larger, more diverse samples.