Autism in Aotearoa: Is the RAADS-14 a Valid Tool for a New Zealand Population?

Autism in Aotearoa Is the RAADS-14 a Valid Tool for a New Zealand Population?

Screening measures for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are important tools for clinicians and researchers. However, where a measure developed and validated for one population is used with another, its performance in this new context must be carefully examined. The RAADS-14, a brief ASD screen develop...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:European journal of psychological assessment : official organ of the European Association of Psychological Assessment Vol. 37; no. 3; pp. 247 - 257
Main Authors: Kember, Sarah M., Williams, Matt N.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Hogrefe Publishing 01-01-2021
Subjects:
Autism Spectrum Disorders
Convergent Validity
Discriminant Validity
Factor Structure
Female
Human
Internal Consistency
Male
Personality Measures
Screening Tests
Self-Report
Test Validity
ASD
screening
RAADS-14
validity
autism spectrum disorder
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Summary:Screening measures for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are important tools for clinicians and researchers. However, where a measure developed and validated for one population is used with another, its performance in this new context must be carefully examined. The RAADS-14, a brief ASD screen developed in Sweden, was evaluated with a sample of New Zealand adults (N = 387), 41 of whom self-reported a prior diagnosis of ASD. The convergent validity of the RAADS-14 (Hypothesis 2) was supported by a strong positive correlation with the AQ-10 (short version of the Autism Spectrum Quotient), r = .81. Discriminant validity (Hypothesis 3) was also supported by a strong negative correlation with the EQ-Short (short version of the Empathy Quotient), r = −.75. However, the measure did not meet inferential criteria for internal consistency (Hypothesis 1), and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) found a poor fit of the proposed three-factor model (Hypothesis 4) to the data. A cut-off score of 14/42 provided adequate sensitivity (95%) to detect participants with self-reported ASD diagnoses, but not adequate specificity (70%), suggesting a very high rate of false positives should be expected if relying on RAADS-14 scores alone to interpret presence of ASD. In sum, our results do not provide sufficient evidence of reliability and validity to support the use of the RAADS-14 with the New Zealand population. We provide suggestions for refinement of the RAADS-14 that may lead to increased reliability and validity.
ISSN:1015-5759
2151-2426
DOI:10.1027/1015-5759/a000598