Quality of Life in Autistic Children: Discrepancies Between Self- and Caregiver-Proxy Reports and Associations With Individual Characteristics.
Emily C Skaletski, Rebekah M Rodriguez, Sharon G Gartland and 4 others
PMID 40824145WHAT IT FOUND
Caregivers and autistic children disagreed significantly on quality of life.
Autism and ADHD features predicted caregiver ratings but not child self-reports. Sensory and sleep difficulties predicted both. Do not assume caregiver proxy scores reflect the child's own experience.
Key findings
01Agreement between self- and caregiver-proxy-reported quality of life was poor, with caregivers generally rating quality of life higher than children.
02Autism and ADHD features were related to caregiver-proxy-reported quality of life but not to self-reported quality of life.
03Sensory features and sleep difficulties were related to quality of life regardless of who was reporting.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat 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 was small (74 children). The sample was predominantly White, male, and from higher-income families. Only one participant did not communicate using spoken language, limiting generalizability to non-speaking autistic children. Most individual characteristics (autism, ADHD, sensory, sleep) were measured only via caregiver report, not child self-report.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The study was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that interventions targeting autism or ADHD features will improve the child's own quality of life. These features related to caregiver ratings but not to the children's self-reports.
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 →