Cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the Autism Family Experience Questionnaire to an Indian context

The Autism Family Experience Questionnaire (AFEQ) is a 48-item questionnaire that assesses parental priorities for outcomes of early intervention of parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The present study aims to adapt and validate the AFEQ to the Indian context as an attempt to provide a measure of family life and parent-reported outcomes before and after intervention.

Seventy-five parents of children with ASD were recruited for the study. The adapted version of AFEQ was given to five experienced professionals for content validation to assess cultural suitability in the Indian context. The test-retest reliability was assessed by re-administering the questionnaire to 40 parents within 15 to 30 days of initial administration.

The Cronbach's alpha value for the overall AFEQ score was 0.64, indicating acceptable internal consistency. Cohen's kappa agreement was found to be 0.62, indicating good agreement between the five professionals. The adapted AFEQ scale showed good test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.72).

Results of our study indicated that AFEQ has good internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and content validity. The adapted AFEQ is a reliable and valid assessment tool that can be used to assess the parental experiences of families with ASD in the Indian context.