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Reliability and validity of the translated Chinese version of Autism Spectrum Rating Scale (2–5 years)

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Abstract

Background

Early autism screening is of great value, but there is lack of a screening tool of early age (2–5 years) in China. The Autism Spectrum Rating Scale (ASRS, 2–5 years) is a newly developed autism screening tool in the USA. This study aimed to evaluate the reliability and validity of the translated Chinese version of ASRS (C_ASRS) in Chinese children population before its application in China for early autism screening.

Methods

Caregivers of general children aged 2–5 years from 17 kindergartens and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) cases from five special education schools in five cities were recruited to complete the C_ASRS. 1910 valid questionnaires from kindergarteners and 192 from ASD cases were included for analyses.

Results

The item reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) was more than 0.80 in the screening scale and DSM-5 scale, and 0.51–0.81 in the treatment scale. ASD cases scored higher on total score and most subscales compared to the kindergarteners (Cohen’s d ranging from 1.34 to 3.37). C_ASRS showed good discriminatory validity with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.850 (95% confidence interval: 0.819–0.881). The cutoff ≥ 60 achieved sensitivity of 65.63% and specificity of 85.63% in discriminating autism children from the general population.

Conclusion

The results indicate that C_ASRS (2–5 years) could be used as an early level-2 screening tool for autism screening in China and should be further revised for level-1 screening.

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Acknowledgements

We are extremely appreciative of the caregivers of the children who participated in this study.

Funding

This study was supported by the National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China (No. 201302002; ClinicalTrials.gov number: NCT 02200679) and the Doctor Funding of Guizhou Provincial People’s Hospital (GZSYBS [2016]07).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Hao Zhou and Chun-Pei Li contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, Children’s Hospital of Fudan University, No. 399 Wanyuan Road, Minhang District, Shanghai, 201102, China

    Hao Zhou, Chun-Pei Li & Yi Wang

  2. Guizhou Provincial People’s Hospital, Medical College of Guizhou University, Guiyang, 550002, China

    Hao Zhou

  3. Department of Psychiatry, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610041, China

    Yi Huang

  4. Child Developmental-Behavioral Center, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, 510630, China

    Xiao-Bing Zou

  5. Department of Psychiatry, The Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, 410008, China

    Xue-Rong Luo

  6. School of Public Health, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, 150081, China

    Li-Jie Wu

  7. Department of Child Health, Chengdu Women and Children’s Hospital, Chengdu, 610091, China

    Lan Zhang

  8. Department of Child Health, Children’s Hospital of Fudan University, Shanghai, 201102, China

    Xiu Xu

  9. Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Children’s Hospital of Fudan University, Shanghai, 201102, China

    Wei-Li Yan

  10. State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, Fudan University, Shanghai, 201132, China

    Yi Wang

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  1. Hao Zhou
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  2. Chun-Pei Li
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  7. Lan Zhang
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Contributions

HZ drafted the manuscript, collected the data, and completed the data analysis. CPL drafted the manuscript, collected the data, and completed the data analysis. HZ and CPL contributed equally to this work. YH, XBZ, XRL, LJW, and LZ collected the data. XX revised the manuscript. WLY completed the data analysis and revised the manuscript. YW designed and supervised this study, and revised the manuscript. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yi Wang.

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Ethical approval

The research was approved by the Children’s Hospital of Fudan University Ethics Board ([2012] No. 185).

Conflict of interest

All authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Zhou, H., Li, CP., Huang, Y. et al. Reliability and validity of the translated Chinese version of Autism Spectrum Rating Scale (2–5 years). World J Pediatr 15, 49–56 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12519-018-0201-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12519-018-0201-3

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