Advisory Committee Chair
Kristi Guest
Advisory Committee Members
Laura McGuinn
Sylvie Mrug
Document Type
Thesis
Date of Award
2023
Degree Name by School
Master of Science (MS) College of Arts and Sciences
Abstract
The current study aimed to identify patterns of adaptive functioning in autistic children. Additionally, this study assessed predictors of adaptive functioning by examining whether cognitive ability predicted adaptive functioning in children with and without ASD and exploring whether expressive and receptive language predicted adaptive behavior and whether those relationships were moderated by an ASD diagnosis. Participants included 196 children who were evaluated for ASD at a tertiary care clinic. In this sample, 89 participants (45%) were diagnosed with ASD, 143 (73%) were male, and the average age was 6.63 years old (SD= 3.08). Profile analysis was used to evaluate the patterns of adaptive behavior. Results indicated that autistic children performed worse on measures of overall adaptive behavior compared to children without ASD, F(1, 190)= 10.56, p=.001. However, autistic and non-autistic children did not exhibit significantly different patterns of adaptive functioning. Both the ASD and non-ASD groups displayed similar patterns, scoring significantly higher on the daily living skills domain (M= 72.01) compared to the communication (M= 67.54) and socialization domains (M= 68.50). Multiple hierarchical regression was used to evaluate predictors of adaptive functioning. Due to the multicollinearity between receptive and expressive language, they were assessed in separate models. After controlling for motor abilities and maternal education, the results indicated that participants with higher cognitive functioning had better adaptive functioning (p
Recommended Citation
Stein, Brianna, "Adaptive Behavior and Clinical Characteristics of Children Referred for an Autism Spectrum Disorder Evaluation" (2023). All ETDs from UAB. 65.
https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/etd-collection/65