Matching preschool children with autism spectrum disorders and comparison children for language ability: methodological challenges.
Stop hunting for perfect language twins in preschool autism research; use several tests and accept close matches.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Charman (2004) looked at how researchers try to pair preschoolers with autism to typical kids of the same language level.
The paper lists the traps teams fall into: one test score never tells the whole story, and perfect matches rarely exist.
It is a narrative review, so it sums up earlier work instead of running new kids through tests.
What they found
The review says language scores in preschool autism are too uneven to force a clean match.
Tony urges teams to use several language measures and accept close-enough pairs instead of hunting for twins who do not exist.
How this fits with other research
Tager-Flusberg (2004), printed the same year, goes one step further: skip matching altogether and map language types inside autism.
Nevill et al. (2019) later showed toddler scores jump when you switch from direct test to parent report, backing Tony’s call for multiple tools.
Hartley et al. (2019) tried language matching with older kids and found no group gap on picture tasks, proving careful matching can work if you accept imperfect pairs, just as Tony advised.
Why it matters
Next time you read an autism study, check how the groups were matched. If the paper used only one language test, take the findings with a grain of salt. When you design your own research or reviews, plan for two or three language measures and publish the range of scores so other BCBAs see the real spread.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Earlier identification of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) is welcome, but presents a number of challenges to the clinical and the research enterprises (see Charman & Baird [2002] for a review). In the research enterprise, one critical methodological challenge is the use of appropriate measures on which to match groups of preschoolers with ASDs to comparison groups with other neurodevelopmental conditions. Language and communication impairments are central to the diagnosis of ASD and, therefore, critical variables to consider in group-matched research designs. In the domain of language function the challenges include the very poor language competence of many preschoolers with ASDs, the fact that some early language competencies form part of the formal diagnostic criteria of ASD and diagnostic algorithms on research diagnostic instruments, the uneven profile of language competency in children with ASDs, and the difference between performance on measures of formal language competency in the testing situation and everyday language use. The current paper will review these challenges and suggest some possible approaches to overcome them, including using more than one measure of language ability and adopting a pragmatic approach to group composition and statistical analysis.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2004 · doi:10.1023/b:jadd.0000018075.77941.60