Goal attainment scaling as an outcome measure in randomized controlled trials of psychosocial interventions in autism.
Goal Attainment Scaling gives the same reliable results whether teachers or researchers write the goals and whether you code live or from video.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Honigfeld et al. (2012) tested Goal Attainment Scaling in autism trials. They asked teachers to write GAS descriptions for kids with autism. Researchers then coded the same goals live and from video.
The team wanted to know if teachers and researchers rate goals the same way. They also checked if live coding matches video coding.
What they found
Teacher and researcher ratings matched almost perfectly. Video coding was just as reliable as watching live.
This means you can trust GAS scores whether a teacher or researcher fills them out. You can also code from video later instead of watching every session live.
How this fits with other research
Hubel et al. (2008) created a five-minute questionnaire that replaces a long interview for auditing residential programs. Like Lisa's team, they showed staff can give reliable data without an expert present.
Dutt et al. (2019) built a scale that measures teacher skill in FBA. Both studies prove teacher-completed tools can be psychometrically sound.
Locurto et al. (1980) warned that observer gender and loose procedures hurt accuracy. Lisa's tight GAS protocol avoids those old pitfalls.
Why it matters
You can add GAS to your autism trials without extra staff. Train teachers once, collect goals online, and code video when you have time. This saves hours of live observation while keeping strong data.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Goal attainment scaling (GAS) holds promise as an idiographic approach for measuring outcomes of psychosocial interventions in community settings. GAS has been criticized for untested assumptions of scaling level (i.e., interval or ordinal), inter-individual equivalence and comparability, and reliability of coding across different behavioral observation methods. We tested assumptions of equality between GAS descriptions for outcome measurement in a randomized trial (i.e., measurability, equidistance, level of difficulty, comparability of behavior samples collected from teachers vs. researchers and live vs. videotape). Results suggest GAS descriptions can be evaluated for equivalency, that teacher collected behavior samples are representative, and that varied sources of behavior samples can be reliably coded. GAS is a promising measurement approach. Recommendations are provided to ensure methodological quality.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2012 · doi:10. 1177/00131640021970682