The Vineland-II in Preschool Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: An Item Content Category Analysis.
Four Vineland-II item sets—Playing, Following instructions, Beginning to talk, and Speech skills—flag autism in low-functioning preschoolers better than the full form.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team looked at 26 Vineland-II items in 3- to young learners.
Half had autism. Half had other delays like Down syndrome or cerebral palsy.
They asked which items best told the groups apart.
What they found
Four item sets stood out: Playing, Following instructions, Beginning to talk, and Speech skills.
Kids with autism scored lower on these than kids with other delays.
The gap was biggest in low-functioning children.
How this fits with other research
Le Couteur et al. (2008) showed the ADI-R and ADOS are gold-standard tools. Cappagli et al. (2016) adds: check those four Vineland items after you run the ADOS.
Fung et al. (2018) built a 6-item day-care screener. Their list overlaps with the Vineland speech items, pushing screening outside the clinic.
Leung et al. (2011) made a 21-item social screener. Both studies reach the same goal—spot autism fast—but the Vineland items are already in your file, no new form needed.
Why it matters
You already give the Vineland-II. Just score four key areas first. If Playing, Following instructions, Beginning to talk, and Speech skills are low, move autism higher on your differential list. It saves time and sharpens early diagnosis in low-functioning preschoolers.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
We investigated which item subsets of the Vineland-II can discriminate low-functioning preschoolers with ASD from matched peers with other neurodevelopmental disorders, using a regression analysis derived from a normative sample to account for cognitive and linguistic competencies. At variance with the typical profile, a pattern with Communication more impaired than Socialization was observed. The source of the frequently reported Socialization delay in ASD appears to be in Playing and Imitating skills only, not in other social adaptive behavior skills. The combination of item subsets Playing, Following instructions, Beginning to talk, and Speech skills provided the best discrimination between the two clinical groups. Evaluation of the Vineland-II score on item content categories is a useful procedure for a more efficient clinical description.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2016 · doi:10.1007/s10803-015-2533-3