The latent structure of the Delis–Kaplan system for autism

Abstract

A core feature of autism is deficits in executive functioning (EF), including difficulty with planning, cognitive flexibility, and working memory. Despite a growing need for evidence‐based assessments of EF for autism populations, statistical models of many commonly used measures of EF, including the Delis–Kaplan Executive Function System (D‐KEFS), have not been investigated for a sample of autistic participants. The purpose of this study was to address a gap in the literature regarding the latent structure of the D‐KEFS in a sample of autistic individuals. The D‐KEFS is one of the most widely used clinical assessments of executive function, but its factor structure has not been examined in a sample of autistic participants. Reliability analyses were performed for sample subgroups based on participants' clinical and demographic characteristics, including IQ, autism severity, age, and race/ethnicity. Verbal Fluency (VF) was found to consistently decrease or not affect the overall reliability score. Additionally, one‐ and two‐factor structure models were tested for the D‐KEFS with a sample of autistic participants. The one‐factor model was not found to be a good fit for the data. However, the two‐factor model, with Cognitive Flexibility and Abstraction latent factors, was found to fit the data relatively well. This two‐factor model was reexamined excluding the VF observed variable, resulting in a better overall model fit. Communication deficits are a common feature of autism, which explains why the VF task, that requires participants to produce novel words, may not be an adequate measure of executive function for autism populations.