Development of a school-age extension of the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers through expert consensus and...

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends universal screening to identify children at higher likelihood for autism at 18- and 24-month well-child visits. There are many children, however, that are missed during this toddler age who do not get diagnosed until much later in development, delaying access to autism-specific interventions. Currently, brief measures for universal autism screening for school-age children, however, are lacking. In this project, we adapted a commonly used autism screener for toddlers, the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers, Revised, with Follow-Up (M-CHAT-R/F), to be used for school-age children. This measure, called the M-CHAT-School (M-CHAT-S), is a parent- and teacher-report questionnaire to be used to screen for autism in school-age children aged 4 to 8 years of age. M-CHAT-S was developed through feedback from autism experts, as well as interviews with parents and teachers to provide input on the items. Two versions of M-CHAT-S were developed, one for verbally fluent and one for minimally verbal school-age children. M-CHAT-S is a brief measure, with updated items to reflect changes in the way experts think and talk about autism, making it a useful measure to use for autism screening in elementary aged children. The next steps include further testing to ensure that M-CHAT-S performs well in identifying children with increased likelihood of autism, after which it will be made available to parents, educators, and other professionals.