Finding Effective Screening Instruments for Autism Using Bayes Theorem

Screening for Autism Spectrum Disorders in Flemish Day-Care Centres with the Checklist for Early Signs of Developmental Disorders

“…However, for the ESAT the estimated likelihood ratio based on the prevalence rates reported by Baird and colleagues (2000) is higher (+LR = 67.3). This higher ratio comes however with a lower sensitivity (Se = .23; Groen et al 2007). So, when a child screens positive on the ESAT, it is very likely that the child had ASD.…”

Can Child Care Workers Contribute to the Early Detection of Autism Spectrum Disorders? A Comparison Between Screening Instruments with Child Care Workers Versus Parents as Informants

“…Children who fail three or more items on the ESAT screen positive for ASD. This instrument has a low sensitivity of .23, but a very high specificity of .99 (Groen et al, 2007). These results are based on a very large population screen of over 30,000 children, whereas many other instruments report the psychometric properties of a high-risk sample of children, thereby overestimating the sensitivity.…”

“…These physicians have to base their clinical judgment on a brief observation of the child and a short conversation with the parents. This may possibly explain the low sensitivity reported for these screening instruments in the general population (Baird, et al, 2000;Groen, Swinkels, van der Gaag, & Buitelaar, 2007).…”

How useful are screening instruments for toddlers to predict outcome at age 4? General development, language skills, and symptom severity in children with a false positive screen for autism spectrum disorder

“…This instrument was validated in a large population sample of 31,724 children. It had a low sensitivity of .23, but a very high specificity of .99 [29].…”