The usefulness of the Revised Psychoeducational Profile for the assessment of preschool children with pervasive developmental disorders.

The team gave the preschoolers the Revised Psychoeducational Profile (PEP-R).

Half had autistic disorder (AD). Half had PDD-NOS.

They wanted to know if PEP-R scores could tell the two groups apart.

PEP-R scores were clearly different between the two groups.

Kids with AD scored lower on play, imitation, and language tasks.

The test gave a quick, play-based way to spot who needed more support.

Le Couteur et al. (2008) also worked with preschoolers. They paired the ADI-R parent interview with the ADOS play tasks. Both tools together caught more cases than either alone.

Rogers et al. (2017) tested the Social Responsiveness Scale in 2- to young learners. Like the PEP-R, it separated ASD from non-ASD, but it used teacher forms, not hands-on play.

Cappagli et al. (2016) found that four Vineland-II subsets—Playing, Following instructions, Beginning to talk, Speech skills—did the same job. Their items overlap with PEP-R play and language tasks, so the two measures may give similar clues.

If you test a young learners and need to decide between AD and PDD-NOS, add the PEP-R to your kit. It takes 45 minutes, uses toys, and gives clear cut-offs. Pair it with a parent interview like the ADI-R for the fullest picture.