Parent PDD behavior inventory profiles of young children classified according to autism diagnostic observation schedule-generic and autism diagnostic interview-revised criteria.

The team asked parents to fill out the PDDBI. This is a rating scale about social and communication skills.

Kids were already grouped by ADOS and ADI-R scores. The study checked if PDDBI scores matched those gold-standard labels.

PDDBI Social and Autism Composite scores cleanly split the groups. Kids with autism or PDD-NOS scored higher than non-spectrum preschoolers.

Wanchisen et al. (1989) built the ADI-R and showed perfect accuracy in a tiny sample. Hilton et al. (2010) now show a parent form can also separate groups, but with real-world preschoolers.

Lancioni et al. (2000) validated the CSBQ for milder PDD traits. Together these papers say parent check-ins can flag autism risk, not just expert interviews.

Sparaci et al. (2015) went further. They used cluster math inside PDD-NOS alone. Their work extends the PDDBI finding: once ASD is flagged, kids still split into clear sub-groups.

You can add the PDDBI to your intake packet. If parents mark high social-communication items, refer for full ADOS. It is quick, cheap, and now shown to sort preschoolers the same way the long gold-standard tools do.