Designing and psychometric analysis of a Comprehensive Functional Assessment Instrument for 2 to 5 Years Old children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: expert version

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is classified as a neurodevelopmental disorder. which starts from early childhood and continues until adulthood. This disease includes a wide range of sensory and functional problems and disabilities. Heterogeneity is known as a hallmark of autism spectrum disorder. Therefore, clinicians are very confused when dealing with patients with this disorder. On the other hand, based on searches in Farsi and English, a comprehensive tool that can functionally classify patients with autism spectrum disorder was not found in the databases. Due to the heterogeneity of the disorder as well as the lack of a comprehensive and efficient tool for the functional assessment of patients, clinicians in dealing with patients with autism spectrum disorder get confused among a large number of symptoms, and each group of symptoms requires a different treatment approach. Nowadays, individualized medicine is very important, and if the patient's symptoms can be properly categorized, the personalized medicine approach can be done more in these patients. The main purpose of this study is Designing and psychometric analysis of a Comprehensive Functional Assessment Instrument for 2 to 5 Years Old children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: expert version method: The present study was designed as a continuation of the previous study that was conducted to design and psychometrically assess the functional assessment tool for autism spectrum disorder in 2-5 year old children with autism spectrum disorder. In the present study, we designed and psychometrically evaluated the therapist version of the above tool. Considering that in the previous research, after extracting the titles and various functional aspects, the results of the study conducted by Bolt et al. were compared as an important basic study with the items obtained from different studies, and according to Based on the opinion of the expert panel, it included all the functional aspects mentioned in other studies, and even went beyond them, it was the basis of our research. In the first stage, with the participation of experts in this field, among the questions that were removed in the previous research after the survey of experts in this field and statistical analysis, 94 questions were removed at this stage of the research and 137 questions were included in the study. Then, during various meetings and with the research team, the initial version of the tool was compiled. The content validity was evaluated both qualitatively and quantitatively (by calculating two indicators, Content Validity Ratio (CVR) and Content Validity Index (CVI). Face validity was checked qualitatively with the participation of the members of each evaluation group and quantitatively by 15 experts, and the impact score of each item of the tool was determined. Cronbach's α coefficient was used to check the reliability of the questionnaire. The feasibility of the final tool was evaluated by 20 evaluators from each group in a pilot way. Findings: The results of the content validity ratio (CVR) indicated that out of 137 questions designed in the tool, only 50 questions had a number equal to or greater than the number (0.62) in Lawshe's table. Which means that out of 137 questions, only 50 questions were used as necessary and important questions in this tool. The results of the content validity index (CVI) indicated that out of the 50 questions that were transferred to the CVI stage after the revision in the CVR stage, all the questions had a CVI score higher than 0.8 and were therefore deemed appropriate. The results of the agreement index between evaluators (K) indicated that all 50 questions had a score higher than 0.79, which indicates the level of agreement at an excellent level. Therefore, at this stage, all 50 questions remained in the designed tool. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was calculated as 0.95, which indicates the high reliability of the questionnaire.