Talk:Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule

Psychology Mid‑importance

	Psychology portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Psychology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Psychology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PsychologyWikipedia:WikiProject PsychologyTemplate:WikiProject Psychologypsychology
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Autism Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Autism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of all aspects of autism and autistic culture on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AutismWikipedia:WikiProject AutismTemplate:WikiProject AutismAutism
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Medicine: Psychiatry Mid‑importance

	Medicine portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Medicine, which recommends that medicine-related articles follow the Manual of Style for medicine-related articles and that biomedical information in any article use high-quality medical sources. Please visit the project page for details or ask questions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine.MedicineWikipedia:WikiProject MedicineTemplate:WikiProject Medicinemedicine
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.
	Psychiatry portal This article is supported by the Psychiatry task force (assessed as Mid-importance).
	An editor has requested that an image or photograph be added to this article.

Disability

Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule is within the scope of WikiProject Disability. For more information, visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.DisabilityWikipedia:WikiProject DisabilityTemplate:WikiProject DisabilityDisability

note

Took out reference to "degree of symptoms" in the first paragraph. The ADOS is currently categorical (a person is either "in" or "out" of the classification) and not dimensional (can't say that one person is "more autistic" than another, nor that one person is "very autistic" and another is "not very autistic"). There is certainly new reearch in the area that is starting to suggest that autism symptoms are on a continuum, but the ADOS as it is presently validated, does not lend itself to that kind of measure/distinction.

Also felt that the previous cautionary last paragraph in the article, while having several salient points, came at things from a less scientific point of view. For example, the instrument doesn't make mistaken diagnoses when used on individuals with motor deficits, the instrument should absolutely never be used with such individuals in the first place to make a formal classification. Similarly, it did not seem correct to end with a comment on non-specific "functional assessments" being superior to a formally validated instrument in the absence of countervailing evidence. Perhaps there should be a separate article about alternate measures, with a "see also" link from this article?Cpgruber 06:40, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What the article really needs is some specific sources for the comments you've provided above and in the page - general references aren't really useful for pages like this. I've also removed the sentence While the instrument has been a central tool for international research on autism for over 15 years and provides a scientifically validated autism classification, neither it nor any other single measure should be the sole factor in a medical diagnosis from the last paragraph - the preceeding sentence seems reasonable, but this one is a bit OR for my tastes. It's also very proscriptive, and we are not a how-to guide. I don't know enough about the ADOS to know if this is actually common knowledge, so if a source could be provided, it may be appropriate for the page. I'd prefer it re-worded though.

If you are well-informed about the ADOS, it's research and use, it'd be great if you could expand the stub. WLU 14:01, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the input. Not really sure how to implement a proper tone/style on this as I am on the OR side of things and so is the instrument. It is hard to rethink a more general take--what kind of sources to cite, etc. The ADOS (and ADI-R a closely related structred psychiatric interview by the same authors are ususally cited as the "gold standard" in the area of autism research. NIMH or NIH studies in this country and collaborative studies in Europe use the instruments to qualify their samples--that is, the instruments more or less define what autism means in the reseach community. They've been translated into 20 languages worldwide. The ADOS external link in the article is to the ADOS author's University of Michigan laboratory website. There, among other ueful information sources on autism, can be found a 65-page annotated bibliography covering some but not all of the peer review journals and other major works using the ADOS.

You were right to futher cut back the second paragraph. Perhaps it should be removed entirely. The problem is that psychological tests that are used to make life-changing diagnoses provoke a lot of deeply felt reaction at times. Not every user will have been totally proper in their application of the instrument. And all such measures will provide useful, important information, but within a limitation usually described scientifically as "the error of measurement." So cautions and provisos are always necessary when the discussion touches on professional uses. Typically the most important single such statement for all psychological tests and particularly those used in high stakes testing (e.g., IQ tests, dignostic tests for ADHD and autism, yes also achivement and aptitude tests used in scholastic placement) is that "No single test result should be used as the sole basis of a educational decision or psychiatric dianosis. Test results should be used in conjunction with other relevant infomation to arrive a a fully informed professional judgment." That is probably not the kind of statement that should appear in every stub for every psychological test in a general encyclopedia entry. In its absence, however and unfortunately, each stub will tend to collect ad hoc criticisms based on what may well be true and unfortuate experiences that are due to test misuse rather than characteristics of the test itself.Plskmn 15:27, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Source it. Best thing to do for anything. Find sources, add them. If someone's said so, or if it's part of the ADOS protocol or manual, that's a source. WLU 20:27, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{Sourcecheck}}).

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 04:35, 22 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"GOLD STANDARD"

The line "The ADI-R and ADOS are both considered gold standard diagnostic tests for aautism" in the introduction is linked to item 1 in the references. The paper that is cited here very specifically notes that the concept of "gold standard" in Autism assessment is problematic, and that it's time to rethink the idea of describing things that way. The article essentially says that the while ADOS is often described as the "gold standard" there's no merit to either the claim itself, or the practise of referring to any assessment tool that way.

It may be technically correct that article says that 'it's often referred to as the gold standard' but it feels like it's a pretty fundamental misrepresentation of the article's intent. 58.168.80.4 (talk) 07:53, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You are quite right that the article questions the concept of gold standard in autism assessment. However, and please anyone who reads this, correct me if I am wrong, the part in which the author says that "Even the assessment tools described by many as “gold standards”" (that is, ADOS and ADI-R) is not primary research, but rather a review-like remark. The part in which he then questions the concept of "gold standard" in autism assessment is his own point of view. Other scientists may agree with him, or not. So that is how we can use this article as a source for the statement that the ADI-R and ADOS are both considered gold standard diagnostic tests for autism, but not for a questioning of this. Lova Falk (talk) 07:13, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comorbid ADHD

The article says: "According to literature, 50-70% of people with autism also have ADHD." This seems very high.
I look at the source, an article in Frontiers: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8918663/#B1. Yes, it says "The prevalence of ADHD in people with ASD ranges from 50 to 70%, according to the literature (1)."
I click on link 1. An article in Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1750946721000349?via%3Dihub. Here it says, in Highlights:
The pooled estimate of the current prevalence of ADHD in ASD was 38.5 %.
The pooled estimate of the lifetime prevalence of ADHD in ASD was 40.2 %.
It seems to me the source in Frontiers is using misleading numbers, or maybe it is just a mistake, and I would like to change this sentence to "an average of 38-40% of people with autism also have ADHD" sourced by the second source. I have also asked a question about this here: WP:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#When_sources_seem_misleading Please, other editors, give you opinion! Lova Falk (talk) 14:26, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

After the discussion on the noticeboard, I will now change this sentence with the new source from science direct. Lova Falk (talk) 09:28, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]