Cross-cultural adaptation, reliability, and validity of the autism treatment evaluation checklist in persian

The objectives of the current study were to translate and adapt Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist (ATEC) into Persian language and to investigate its reliability and validity in an Iranian autistic sample.

A total sample of 134 children with autism spectrum disorders aged 6-15 years were assigned to the study. The process of cross-cultural adaptation was performed according to international methodological steps as following: translation, back-translation, revision by an expert committee and pretest. A sample of 20 primary caregivers of autistic children were pretested. The content validity of the ATEC was reviewed by the expert committee all through the stages. The construct quality of the questionnaire was evaluated by comparison of the adapted version of the instrument with similar tests assessed similar factors. Moreover, the reliability of the questionnaire was evaluated through stability and homogeneity assessments.

The results showed good content validity and internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha: 0.86-0.93). In relation to construct validity, there was significant correlation between ATEC subscales and raw data obtained from Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R) (r=0.38-0.79). The Intraclass Correlation Coefficient for the test-retest reliability was excellent for all the subscales and also for total scores (ICC: 0.79 - 0.93).

Cross-cultural adaptation of ATEC was successful. The psychometric properties were verified and indicated that the adapted questionnaire is valid and reliable to use in Iranian culture.