Sensitivity and Specificity of the EFA Adaptive Functioning Scale for Autism Spectrum Disorder and Intellectual...

The assessment of adaptive functioning is essential in neurodevelopmental disorders, such as Intellectual Disability (ID) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), as a diagnostic criterion and as a definer of the level of severity or support. The Adaptive Functioning Scale (Escala de Funcionamento Adaptativo - EFA) is a Brazilian instrument for assessing adaptive functioning in children and adolescents aged 6 to 15. This study aimed to investigate evidence of the validity of EFA criteria as a screening instrument FA difficulties in individuals with ID and ASD.

917 EFA children and adolescents without diagnoses of neurodevelopmental disorders participated, 76 with a diagnosis of ID, and 65 with ASD.

Variance analyses indicated differences in Z values in the three dimensions for the three groups. The differences presented a medium effect size, with the following partial Eta squared values: Social = 0.40; Practical = 0.43; Conceptual = 0.58. Sensitivity values ranged from 90 to 91% and 87 to 94%, while specificity values ranged from 64 to 74% and 63 to 90% in the ASD and ID groups respectively. The AUC values obtained for the EFA indicate that it has an excellent discriminatory capacity between the different aspects of adaptive functioning in the three domains of the instrument.

The EFA showed a greater ability to identify individuals with ASD and ID compared to individuals without diagnosis for all domains.