Using the brief observation of social communication change (BOSCC) to measure autism‐specific development

Abstract

To date no reliable and objective, change sensitive instrument for autistic symptoms is available. The brief observation of social communication change (BOSCC) was specifically developed to measure change of core autistic symptoms, for example, for use as outcome measure in early intervention trials. This study investigated quality criteria of a preliminary research version of the BOSCC in N = 21 children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who had participated for 1 year in the Frankfurt early intervention program (FFIP). BOSCC rating was done on play based ADOS video scenes. Inter-rater agreement on the BOSCC average total was very high. The BOSCC showed a significant decrease of autistic symptoms after 1 year with a medium effect size. Symptom specific improvements were captured by the social communication subscale and most single items. The BOSCC showed comparable change sensitivity to other autism specific instruments. Future studies should focus on the finalized BOSCC version, and replicate findings in a larger sample. Autism Res 2016, 9: 940-950. © 2015 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The Feasibility and Effectiveness of PASS Plus, A Lay Health Worker Delivered Comprehensive Intervention for Autism Spectrum Disorders: Pilot RCT in a Rural Low and Middle Income Country Setting

“…This makes it highly suitable for LMIC implementation, and this trial was its first usage in this setting. The BOSCC shows excellent inter‐rater reliability, satisfactory‐excellent internal consistency and good test‐retest reliability [Grzadzinski et al, ; Kitzerow, Teufel, Wilker, & Freitag, ]. There is less data to date on concurrent or criterion validity, although overall correlation with ADOS is generally reported.…”

Understanding Agency in Interactions Between ChildrenWith Autism and Socially Assistive Robots

“…"The children with autism had been diagnosed using ADI-R and ADOS-G, [...] as high functioning autism" (Pioggia et al, 2007) Kaspar Low; robot is directly controlled by user "a six year old girl with severe autism," "a child with severe autism," "a 16-year old teenager with autism who is not tolerating any other children in any play or other task oriented activities" (Robins, Dautenhahn, & Dickerson, 2009) Keepon Intermediate; robot has a simplified body and simplified social behavior "At CA 1:11 (chronological age of 1 year and 11 months), her mental age (MA) was estimated at 0:10 by Kyoto Scale of Psychological Development", "MA 1:7 at CA 3:1; no apparent language", "MA/cognition 3:2 and MA/language 4:3 at CA 4:6" (Kozima, Nakagawa, & Yasuda, 2007) Nao Intermediate to high; robot speaks, blinks eyes, and plays a song game (Shamsuddin et al, 2012), or robot imitates child behavior (Tapus et al, 2012) "K can be classified as having high-functioning autism" (Shamsuddin et al, 2012); "cognitive abilities are equivalent of a 3 year old child and his language abilities of a 2 year old child"; "language abilities are equivalent to those of a 2 year old child, and his cognitive level of a 3-year old"; "language abilities are equivalent to those of a 1 and a half year old child, and his cognitive level of a 2 year old"; "severe mental retardation and he is nonverbal" (Tapus et al, 2012) Pleo Intermediate to high; dinosaur robot reacting to participants' prosody "ASD and control groups were well matched on verbal and cognitive abilities, with all participants having Verbal and Performance (or nonverbal) IQ above 70" (Kim, Paul, Shic, & Scassellati, 2012 (Vanderborght et al, 2012) QueBall Low; spherical mobile robot "One agitated autistic child"; "Several severely autistic children" (Salter, Davey, & Michaud, 2014) In contrast, technological interventions have been consistently found to hold a great deal of appeal for children with autism and allow them to maintain a "spirit of play" (Colby, 1973) while building social and communicative skills (Moore, McGrath, & Thorpe, 2000;Sansosti & PowellSmith, 2008;Swettenham, 1996;Tanaka et al, 2010;Wainer & Ingersoll, 2011). As the field of computing has advanced, robots have become an increasingly accessible technology, and research in the fields of socially assistive robotics (SAR) (Feil-Seifer & Mataric, 2012), autism therapy, and social communication in autism (Anagnostou et al, 2014;Kitzerow, Teufel, Wilker, &amp...…”

Measuring child social communication across contexts: Similarities and differences across play and snack routines

“…Based on a validation by the measure authors, the BOSCC appears to be reliable across raters and brief time intervals and shows convergent validity with other measures of social communication [Grzadzinski et al, ]. Results in terms of sensitivity to change have been mixed, with some studies finding that the BOSCC captures change [Grzadzinski et al, ; Kitzerow, Teufel, Wilker, & Freitag, ; Pijl et al, ], and others finding no significant change over time [Fletcher‐Watson et al, ; Nordahl‐Hansen, Fletcher‐Watson, McConachie, & Kaale, ]. Whether this variation is due to inadequate sensitivity or lack of treatment effects in a subset of studies is unclear.…”