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Risk Assessment for Parents Who Suspect Their Child Has Autism Spectrum Disorder: Machine Learning Approach
Ayelet Ben-Sasson1, Diana L Robins2, Elad Yom-Tov3
1Department of Occupational Therapy, Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
Background:
Parents are likely to seek Web-based communities to verify their suspicions of autism spectrum disorder markers in their child. Automated tools support human decisions in many domains and could therefore potentially support concerned parents.
Objective:
The objective of this study was to test the feasibility of assessing autism spectrum disorder risk in parental concerns from Web-based sources, using automated text analysis tools and minimal standard questioning.
Methods:
Participants were 115 parents with concerns regarding their child's social-communication development. Children were 16- to 30-months old, and 57.4% (66/115) had a family history of autism spectrum disorder. Parents reported their concerns online, and completed an autism spectrum disorder-specific screener, the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers-Revised, with Follow-up (M-CHAT-R/F), and a broad developmental screener, the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ). An algorithm predicted autism spectrum disorder risk using a combination of the parent's text and a single screening question, selected by the algorithm to enhance prediction accuracy.
Results:
Screening measures identified 58% (67/115) to 88% (101/115) of children at risk for autism spectrum disorder. Children with a family history of autism spectrum disorder were 3 times more likely to show autism spectrum disorder risk on screening measures. The prediction of a child's risk on the ASQ or M-CHAT-R was significantly more accurate when predicted from text combined with an M-CHAT-R question selected (automatically) than from the text alone. The frequently automatically selected M-CHAT-R questions that predicted risk were: following a point, make-believe play, and concern about deafness.
Conclusions:
The internet can be harnessed to prescreen for autism spectrum disorder using parental concerns by administering a few standardized screening questions to augment this process.
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