New Interview and Observation Measures of the Broader Autism Phenotype: Description of Strategy and Reliability Findings for the Interview Measures.
Stick to Factor 1 items from the new BAP interview for the steadiest picture of autism-like traits in parents.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team built new interview questions to spot the broader autism phenotype. They tested the questions twice with the same parents to see if answers stayed the same.
They also ran math checks to find which questions clump together. The goal was a short, steady tool for research and family studies.
What they found
One tight group of items, called Factor 1, held up best. It mixes social-communication quirks and rigid habits.
Parents gave the same answers when interviewed again. Factor 1 stayed solid, so the authors say use only those items for a clean read of BAP traits.
How this fits with other research
de Jonge et al. (2015) took the same new interview and showed it can tell parents of autistic kids from parents of kids with Down syndrome. Their work extends these reliability numbers into real group differences.
Emerson et al. (2007) gave us the BAPQ, a quick paper checklist. The new interview adds a live talk option for times you want richer detail or worry about self-report bias.
Davidson et al. (2014) warned that BAP rates jump around depending on the tool you pick. The 2015 interview tries to fix that by giving one stable factor you can bank on.
Why it matters
If you study family traits or coach parents, you now have a short, reliable interview slice. Ask only Factor 1 questions and you get a score you can trust across visits. This saves time, cuts noise, and makes it easier to link parent traits to child support plans.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Clinical genetic studies confirm the broader autism phenotype (BAP) in some relatives of individuals with autism, but there are few standardized assessment measures. We developed three BAP measures (informant interview, self-report interview, and impression of interviewee observational scale) and describe the development strategy and findings from the interviews. International Molecular Genetic Study of Autism Consortium data were collected from families containing at least two individuals with autism. Comparison of the informant and self-report interviews was restricted to samples in which the interviews were undertaken by different researchers from that site (251 UK informants, 119 from the Netherlands). Researchers produced vignettes that were rated blind by others. Retest reliability was assessed in 45 participants. Agreement between live scoring and vignette ratings was very high. Retest stability for the interviews was high. Factor analysis indicated a first factor comprising social-communication items and rigidity (but not other repetitive domain items), and a second factor comprised mainly of reading and spelling impairments. Whole scale Cronbach's alphas were high for both interviews. The correlation between interviews for factor 1 was moderate (adult items 0.50; childhood items 0.43); Kappa values for between-interview agreement on individual items were mainly low. The correlations between individual items and total score were moderate. The inclusion of several factor 2 items lowered the overall Cronbach's alpha for the total set. Both interview measures showed good reliability and substantial stability over time, but the findings were better for factor 1 than factor 2. We recommend factor 1 scores be used for characterising the BAP.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2015 · doi:10.1002/aur.1466