Development and initial validation of a parent report measure of the behavioral development of infants at risk for autism spectrum disorders.

The team built a new parent checklist called POEMS. It asks about social smiles, waiting, and sounds in babies aged 1-24 months.

Parents of infant brothers and sisters of children with autism filled it out. The study checked if the answers lined up with later diagnoses.

POEMS scores matched later autism diagnoses. Parents spotted early delays and long wait times that doctors also noticed.

The tool showed good reliability and promising predictive validity for detecting early ASD symptoms in at-risk infants.

Ricciardi et al. (2006) and Reznick et al. (2007) did the same thing earlier. Their 4-item ESAT and First Year Inventory also used parent reports at 12 months, proving the idea works.

Hampton et al. (2015) conceptually replicated the approach. They showed parents can flag ASD risk at 12 months by noting play and vocal declines, aligning with POEMS findings.

Cohen et al. (2018) is the direct successor. Their Autism Parent Screen starts at 6 months and is even shorter, building on POEMS but lowering the age and item count.

You can give POEMS during routine sibling visits. It takes five minutes and needs no toys or clinic space. If the score is high, you can start monitoring, refer for evaluation, and teach parents simple social games right away. Early parent input saves months of wait-and-see.