Screening for ASD with the Korean CBCL/1½-5.
The Korean CBCL/1½-5 DSM-PDP scale spots most preschool autism cases while rarely flagging typical kids, but be ready for false alarms when other delays are present.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Neely et al. (2015) tested the Korean form of the CBCL/1½-5.
They asked if the DSM-PDP scale could flag autism in preschoolers.
Kids came from clinics and the community; no extra tasks were added.
What they found
A T-score of 65 or higher caught 80 % of children with ASD.
It also kept out 87 % of typical kids, so false alarms stayed low.
Against other delays the tool was weaker; more kids got wrongly flagged.
How this fits with other research
De Kegel et al. (2016) saw the opposite in U.S. kids: poor accuracy and lots of false positives.
The clash is mostly about place. Korean parents may rate behaviors differently, and the sample mix differs.
So et al. (2013) had already shown a short CBCL scale can work; Leslie’s team used the same idea with Korean norms and the full DSM-PDP scale.
Heo et al. (2008) likewise found that translating and re-norming Western screeners can succeed in Korea when local cut-offs are set.
Why it matters
If you screen in Korean-speaking families, the Korean CBCL/1½-5 DSM-PDP scale is a quick first step.
Use the 65 T-score cut-off to decide who needs a full autism evaluation.
Remember it may over-flag kids with other delays, so pair it with clinical judgment and follow-up tools.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Add the Korean CBCL/1½-5 DSM-PDP to your intake packet and mark kids with T ≥ 65 for priority autism evaluation.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
To test the Child Behavior Checklist's (CBCL/1½-5) ability to screen for autism spectrum disorders (ASD), we studied Korean preschoolers: 46 with ASD, 111 with developmental delay (DD), 71 with other psychiatric disorders (OPD), and 228 non-referred (NR). The ASD group scored significantly higher than the other groups on the Withdrawn and DSM-Pervasive Developmental Problems (DSM-PDP) scales as well as attaining higher scores (p < .001) on seven items reflecting ASD. With a T ≥ 65 cutpoint on the DSM-PDP scale, sensitivity was 80 % for identifying ASD relative to the other three groups, but specificity varied across groups: NR = 87 %, OPD = 55 %, DD = 60 %, replicating in a non-Western sample results from previous studies. Results suggested that the CBCL/1½-5 performs best in Level 1 screening, namely differentiating children with ASD from children in the general population.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2015 · doi:10.1007/s10803-014-2255-y