Investigating requests for information in children with autism spectrum disorders: Static versus dynamic assessment

Abstract

This study investigated the use of static assessment (SA) and dynamic assessment (DA) methodologies for examining the production of requests for information (RI) by children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and typically developing peers (TDP) within their school environment. Following an initial SA observation session, the effects of manipulating contextual and linguistic variables to facilitate the production of RI were systematically investigated across three DA sessions. The contextual variables included object/activity choice and physical setting (e.g., treatment room versus classroom). The linguistic variables included prompting of RI production in an attempt to enhance performance. Independent and paired t-test comparisons revealed statistically significant differences in production of RI between the TDP group and children with ASD. The environmental variables of object/activity choice and linguistic prompting appeared to influence performance for a subgroup of children with ASD. Clinical implications related to the importance of assessing performance using both static and dynamic methodologies are discussed.

Relations between learning potential, cognitive and interpersonal skills in Asperger children

“…These data concur with results from other authors who indicate that there is no relationship between learning in WSCT-LP and general intelligence (Calero, García-Martín, & Robles, 2011;Donaldson & Olswang, 2007), but find a significant relationship between learning and perceptual reasoning, social comprehension and interpersonal skills. It is reasonable to think that learning, which is assessed through these procedures, takes place in a context of social interaction.…”

“…As indicated in our first hypothesis, and as other prior studies have shown (Aljunied & Frederickson, 2011;Bonete et al, 2010;Donaldson & Olswang, 2007;Olswang et al, 2013), children with AS show a significant performance increase between the WCST-LP pre-test and posttest, after receiving brief training provided as part of the assessment. The standard WCST (Ozonoff, 1995) is a task where AS children usually show poorer performance than children with normal development.…”

“…This would explain the relationship observed between WSCT-LP gain scores and the ESCI. First of all, these results reveal the heterogeneity of the ASdiagnosed group, since dynamic assessment uncovers individual differences that can be quite important to intervention and prognosis, though not detected in static assessment (Bonete et al, 2010;Donaldson & Olswang, 2007;Olswang et al, 2013). The gain score correlates to other skills which are especially important in these children, such as social comprehension and/or flexibility.…”

“…This approach takes into account the potential for learning new tasks and has already proven to be useful in the study of other severe mental disorders: 1) more efficient discrimination between different clinical groups (elderly people with and without dementia, schizophrenic patients, children with learning deficits or Down Syndrome) and/or groups of healthy subjects (Calero & Navarro, 2004;Peña, 2000;Robles & Calero, 2013;Watzke, Brieger, Kuss, Schöttke, & Wiedl, 2008;Wiedl, Schöttke, & Calero, 2001); 2) analysis of intra-individual variability in persons with one diagnostic category or between groups with different diagnoses (Lidz, 2003;Sergi, Kern, Mintz, & Green, 2005;Wiedl et al, 2001); and 3) classification of variables that mediate in changes in test performance and which may help improve the predictive validity of different types of intervention (Calero & Navarro, 2007;Donaldson & Olswang, 2007;Swanson & Howard, 2005;Tenhula, Strong Kinnaman, & Bellack, 2007).…”

“…An early study that applies this methodology in children with ASD was carried out by Donaldson and Olswang (2007), who investigated information requests, an ability that is considered to be fundamental to learning about one's environment and relating to others. These authors worked with 14 children with ASD and 12 children with normal development, between the ages of 5 and 7.…”