Preliminary Validation and Feasibility of the Autism Detection in Early Childhood-Virtual (ADEC-V) for Autism Telehealth Evaluations in a Hospital Setting
ADEC-V gives you a quick, 82% accurate autism risk score for toddlers over Zoom.
01Research in Context
What this study did
ESutton et al. (2022) tested a Zoom version of the Autism Detection in Early Childhood.
Doctors watched toddlers play at home through a laptop.
They compared the Zoom scores to gold-standard in-person tests.
What they found
The screen-only tool caught 82 out of 100 kids who truly had autism.
It also ruled out 78 out of 100 kids who did not have autism.
Those numbers are good enough for a first-step screener.
How this fits with other research
Nah et al. (2014) showed the same checklist works face-to-face.
EM moved that checklist online and kept most of the accuracy.
Sutherland et al. (2025) later got even higher agreement, but they used a different protocol.
Meimei et al. (2022) reviewed 17 remote tools and found most land in the same 70-80% range, so ADEC-V sits right in the middle.
Why it matters
You can add ADEC-V to your intake packet.
Send the family a Zoom link, watch the child for 20 minutes, and get a quick risk score.
If the score is high, schedule a full evaluation; if low, keep monitoring.
No travel, no waiting room, no lost appointments.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study provided preliminary validation of the Autism Detection in Early Childhood-Virtual (ADEC-V) for telehealth assessment of possible autism. Participants were 121 children (24.79% female) aged 18-47 months who completed telehealth evaluations at a large pediatric hospital in the Midwestern United States between October 2020 and February 2021. The ADEC-V showed good sensitivity (0.82) and specificity (0.78) and was significantly correlated with other ASD symptom measures (i.e., CARS-2, ADI-R). Internal consistency was acceptable (α = 0.77). These results need replication in a larger and broader sample including more children without ASD. This preliminary validation study identifies the ADEC-V as a promising measure for telehealth ASD assessments in young children.
, 2022 · doi:10.1007/s10803-022-05433-1