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. 2023 Jan 24;13(2):196.
doi: 10.3390/brainsci13020196.

A Parental-Report Questionnaire for Language Abilities and Pragmatics in Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Aimee O'Shea  1 , Claudia H B Holmes  2 , Paul E Engelhardt  1
Affiliations

A Parental-Report Questionnaire for Language Abilities and Pragmatics in Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Aimee O'Shea et al. Brain Sci. .

Abstract

The aim of this study was to test and validate a parental-report questionnaire, which assesses language abilities and pragmatics, in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). We report two experiments: The first served as the initial test and the second sought to provide the first assessment of convergent validity. In total, we recruited 230 parents, where approximately two-thirds had a child with ASD. Results of factor analyses showed a consistent factor structure within each subscale, and the internal consistency was excellent for both sub-scales (Cronbach's alpha >0.90). Convergent validity was assessed by correlating the results of the questionnaire with two sub-scales of the Autism Quotient questionnaire. The correlations were all greater than 0.60. The final version of the questionnaire (following exclusion of problematic items) contains 30 items (12 for language abilities and 18 for pragmatics). We conclude that the questionnaire is a concise and practical instrument for use in a variety of contexts for assessing language functioning and communication in children with ASD.

Keywords: Autism Spectrum Disorders; language ability; pragmatics; questionnaire validation; social communication; verbal children.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Means for language ability and pragmatics broken down by group. Error bars show the standard error of the mean.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Scatterplot of the age by group effect on pragmatics.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Means for language ability and pragmatics broken down by group. Error bars show the standard error of the mean.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Means for social skills and communication broken down by group. Error bars show the standard error of the mean.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Interpretation plots based on the combined data from Experiments 1 and 2.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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