Subdimensions of social-communication behavior in autism-A replication study

In order to identify more refined dimensions of social-communication impairments in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) a previous study applied exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to diagnostic algorithm scores of the autism diagnostic observation schedule (ADOS), Module 3. A three-factor model consisting of repetitive behaviors, impairments in 'Basic Social-Communication' and in 'Interaction quality' (IQ) was established and confirmed. The current study aimed to replicate this model in an independent sample. To advance our understanding of the latent structure of social communication deficits, previous work was complemented by a probabilistic approach.

Participants (N = 1363) included verbally fluent children and young adults, diagnosed as ASD or non-ASD based on "gold standard" best-estimate clinical diagnosis. Confirmatory factor analysis examined the factor structure of algorithm items from the ADOS Module 3 and correlations with individual characteristics (cognitive abilities, age) were analyzed. Linear Regressions were used to test the contribution of each latent factor to the prediction of an ASD diagnosis. To tackle large inter-correlations of the latent factors, a Bayesian exploratory factor analysis (BEFA) was applied.

Results confirmed the previously reported observation of three latent dimensions in the ADOS algorithm reflecting 'Restricted, Repetitive Behaviors', 'Basic Social-Communication' behaviors and 'Interaction Quality'. All three dimensions contributed independently and additively to the prediction of an ASD diagnosis.

By replicating previous findings in a large clinical sample our results contribute to further conceptualize the social-communication impairments in ASD as two dimensional.