To celebrate the Child and Adolescent Mental Health journal’s 25th anniversary, we have released the 25 top cited articles of all time*! All papers are freely available online for you to read.
Number 7 of 25 is…
Measurement Issues: Screening and diagnostic instruments for autism spectrum disorders – lessons from research and practise
Tony Charman, Katherine Gotham
First Published: 04 April 2012
Tony Charman, Katherine Gotham
First Published: 04 April 2012
Key Practitioner Message
- Over the past two decades screening instruments (many) and diagnostic measures (few) for ASD have been developed, although few are well‐evaluated
- Extension of research findings to clinical services must be done with caution, understanding that instrument properties are sample‐specific
- Screening and diagnostic instruments help clinicians least in the cases where they are most in want of direction as their accuracy will always be lower for marginal cases
- Timely and expensive ASD‐specific diagnostic instruments will not always be feasible or appropriate, but clinical teams benefit from practitioners being trained in these methods
* as of December 2019
