Brief Report: Parent-Teacher Discrepancies on the Developmental Social Disorders Scale (BASC-2) in the Assessment of High-Functioning Children with ASD.
Parents score higher than teachers on the BASC-2 autism scale, so always gather both forms and trust the case only when both flag at-risk.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Lopata et al. (2016) looked at the BASC-2 Developmental Social Disorders scale. They asked parents and teachers to rate the same kids with high-functioning autism.
The team wanted to know if the two adults gave matching scores. They also checked how often both adults agreed the child was at risk.
What they found
Parents marked more autism symptoms than teachers on every item. Still, when both adults said "at risk," the child truly needed help four times out of five.
The gap was large enough that using only the teacher form would miss some kids.
How this fits with other research
Bao et al. (2017) used the same HFASD group one year later. They showed that higher parent scores on the same BASC-2 scale predicted lower adaptive skills. The parent-high pattern holds across time.
Greene et al. (2019) swapped the tool to the ABAS-3 adaptive scale. Teachers again rated the child as more capable than parents. The direction of the gap repeats even when we measure daily living skills instead of autism traits.
Llanes et al. (2020) studied younger kids and different symptoms. Parents again reported more anxiety and ADHD signs than teachers. The parent-over-teacher trend spans age and problem type.
Why it matters
When you screen for ASD, collect both BASC-2 forms. Expect the parent numbers to look worse and do not dismiss them. Use the dual at-risk flag as your main decision point. If only the parent form is high, dig deeper instead of trusting one viewpoint.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study compared parent and teacher ratings of ASD-related symptoms of 120 high-functioning children, ages 6-12 years with ASD (HFASD) using the Developmental Social Disorders (DSD) scale of the BASC-2. DSD ratings (parent and teacher) were significantly higher than normative estimates. The cross-informant comparison was significantly higher for parents (vs. teachers), and correlations (ICC and Pearson) between the informant groups were significant (but low in magnitude). Agreement among parents and teachers accurately placed 81 % of cases above the at-risk cutpoint for symptoms of ASD, and agreement was highest in the at-risk range of perceived symptoms. Additional analyses indicated a significant difference in the trend across the parent-teacher discrepancies, and no significant moderators of the discrepancies. Implications for assessment are provided.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2016 · doi:10.1007/s10803-016-2851-0