Early screening for autism spectrum disorder in young children with developmental problems using the Chinese version of the child behavior checklist

Abstract

BackgroundAutism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impairments in social interaction and communication, as well as repetitive patterns of behaviors and restricted interests. Current evidence suggested that children with ASD exhibited high level of co-occurring behavioral and emotional problems. Thus, this study was aimed to investigate the utility of the Chinese version of the Child Behavior Checklist for Ages 1.5–5 (CBCL/1.5–5) for assessing and screening ASD at an early age in Taiwan. MethodsThe CBCL/1.5–5 was completed by the caregivers of 134 clinically referred young children aged 18–47 months, including 66 children with ASD and 68 children with developmental delay (DD). ResultsThe findings of this study showed that young children with ASD scored significantly higher than young children with DD for the following scales: Internalizing, Anxious/Depressed, Withdrawn, Attention Problems and Pervasive Developmental Problems (PDP). The results also showed that the Withdrawn scale yielded the best discrimination between the two groups using a T-score of 66 as cutoff. The area under the curve, sensitivity and specificity were .83, .74, and .77 respectively. ConclusionThe findings of this study supported that the CBCL/1.5–5, especially the Withdrawn scale of the syndrome scale, could be used to differentiate young children with ASD from those with DD in Taiwan. Replication with a larger sample size is needed to validate the findings.