Development of the childhood autism rating scale-brief form for early detection of autism spectrum disorder in toddlers under three

Chuang, P-C, Hou, Y-M, Iao, L-S ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3509-9712 and Wu, C-C, 2025. Development of the childhood autism rating scale-brief form for early detection of autism spectrum disorder in toddlers under three. Research in Autism, 126: 202645. ISSN 3050-6573

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Abstract

Background: Early diagnosis and intervention could improve the prognosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study aimed to investigate the validity of the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) in toddlers with ASD under 3 years and develop an efficient abbreviated version for early diagnosis of ASD.

Methods: Two studies were conducted to evaluate the validity of the CARS for detecting ASD. Study 1 examined the differences between 30 toddlers with ASD and 30 toddlers with developmental delays (DD) and analyzed the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Critical items were selected as the CARS-Brief Form (CARS-BF) and cutoff scores were determined. Study 2 involved 206 toddlers, including 115 with ASD, 34 with mild-ASD, and 57 with DD, to validate the utility of the CARS-BF.

Results: Study 1 identified 7 items for the CARS-BF and found the optimal cutoff scores to be 12.5 and 13. Study 2 confirmed the optimal cutoff score of 12.5 and 13 for the CARS-BF and demonstrated good accuracy. Besides, the cutoff score of 13 exhibited high sensitivity (88.7 %) and specificity (84.2 %).

Conclusion: The CARS-BF demonstrated a high level of accuracy. It can be utilized as an effective tool for identifying toddlers with ASD in clinical settings.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Research in Autism
Creators:	Chuang, P.-C., Hou, Y.-M., Iao, L.-S. and Wu, C.-C.
Publisher:	Elsevier
Date:	August 2025
Volume:	126
ISSN:	3050-6573
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1016/j.reia.2025.202645 DOI S3050656525001178 Publisher Item Identifier 2455094 Other
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Jonathan Gallacher
Date Added:	24 Jun 2025 10:55
Last Modified:	24 Jun 2025 14:28
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/53787

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