The Autism–Tics, ADHD and other Comorbidities inventory (A-TAC): previous and predictive validity

Abstract

BackgroundReliable and easy to administer screening instruments focusing on neurodevelopmental disorders and associated conditions are scarce. The Autism–Tics, AD/HD and other Comorbidities inventory (A-TAC) has previously been validated and reporting good– excellent validity for several disorders. This article aims to expand these findings by including more conditions in a substantially larger sample augmented with the Swedish National Patient Register (NPR).MethodsSince 2004 parents of all 9-year-old Swedish twins have been invited to participate in a telephone interview in the Child and Adolescent Twin Study in Sweden, CATSS. The CATSS is linked to the NPR which includes data from in- and outpatient care. Data on neurodevelopmental disorders (A-TAC) collected in CATSS were compared with diagnoses from the NPR. We investigated diagnoses that had been made both before (previous validity) and after (predictive validity) the interview.ResultsSensitivity and specificity of A-TAC scores for predicting earlier or later clinical diagnoses were mostly good–excellent, with values of the area under the curve for a clinical diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) of .98, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) .93, learning disorder (LD) .92, and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) .99, with small differences in terms of previous and predictive analyses. A-TAC provided little validity for eating disorders.ConclusionThe result support previous claims: A-TAC is a broad screening instrument with a particular strength in assessing ASD, ADHD, LD, and ODD at ages 9 and 12, and also provides phenotypic information about other child psychiatric disorders.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12888-017-1563-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Physical health in children with neurodevelopmental disorders

“…The A-TAC was developed based on the diagnostic criteria of DSM-IV, therefore its ASD module covers social interaction, language-communication, and flexibility-repetitive behavior problems in children, its ADHD module covers attention and activity/impulsiveness problems while the LD module measures learning difficulties in reading, writing and mathematical skills but does not exclude children with intellectual disability. The ASD, ADHD and LD modules of A-TAC have been extensively validated against DSM-IV criteria and ICD codes F84.0, F84.1, F84.5 and F84.9 for ASD, F90 for ADHD and F70-F79 for LD (Hansson et al 2005 ; Larson et al 2013 ; Marland et al 2017 ). Assessments of the predictive validity of these A-TAC modules have shown Areas Under the Curve (AUC) of 0.88 for ASD, 0.90 for ADHD and 0.74 for LD (fair to excellent overall validity) (Hansson et al 2005 ).…”

The Association Between Somatic Health, Autism Spectrum Disorder, and Autistic Traits

“…The results of the questionnaire were cross-validated with information from the “sicklist” in the Child and Adolescent Twin Study in Sweden (CATSS) (Anckarsäter et al 2011 ), a population-based cohort containing more than 32,000 twins, which 250 twins also participated in the current study. The sicklist was administered as part of a neurodevelopmental symptoms assessment by telephone interview that has successfully underwent several validations (Hansson et al 2005 ; Larson et al 2010 , 2013 ; Marland et al 2017 ). Ten items of the sicklist inquiring about medical conditions overlap with our somatic health questionnaire were selected to examine the validity of our data.…”

Associations between conduct problems in childhood and adverse outcomes in emerging adulthood: a longitudinal Swedish nationwide twin cohort

“…See Table S1 for the complete set of symptoms. The area under the curve for ODD and CD was 0.80 and 0.70, respectively (Marland et al, 2017). See Table S2 for the prevalence of the number of children with conduct symptoms by sex.…”