Goal attainment scaling-community-based: A method to incorporate personalized outcomes into intervention research with youth and adults on the autism spectrum.

Abstract

Among people with autism-all who have the same diagnosis-there are major differences on a nearly limitless number of areas, such as language, daily living skills, intellectual ability, sensory difficulties, and physical and mental health diagnoses. Despite these many differences, the targeted outcomes of intervention studies are often measured the same way across autistic adults, including outcomes such as getting a job, achieving greater independence, or getting more services. People have different goals and abilities, and it is important to have a way for intervention studies to measure outcomes in a way that is more personal to each individual. To address this issue, we developed a new approach-called "Goal Attainment Scaling-Community-based" or GAS-CB-to measure individualized outcomes across different research settings. In this article, we describe the need for individualized outcomes in autism intervention research and current approaches to gathering these outcomes, with our discussion focused on a method called goal attainment scaling. We then describe reasons why current goal attainment scaling approaches might not be useful in intervention research that takes place in the community. Finally, we discuss a new goal attainment scaling approach (GAS-CB) that can be flexibly used for research participants with very different characteristics.