Diagnostic assessment tools are widely used instruments in
research and clinical practice to assess and evaluate autism
symptoms for both children and adults. These tools typically
involve observing the child or adult under assessment, and
rating their behaviour for signs or so-called symptoms of
autism.
In order to examine how ...
Diagnostic assessment tools are widely used instruments in
research and clinical practice to assess and evaluate autism
symptoms for both children and adults. These tools typically
involve observing the child or adult under assessment, and
rating their behaviour for signs or so-called symptoms of
autism.
In order to examine how autism diagnosis is constructed, how
diagnostic tools are positioned, and how their trainings are
delivered, we paid for four places on a training course for a
diagnostic tool. We asked the attendees (the first four authors)
to each produce a critical commentary about their impressions
of the training and the diagnostic tool itself. Their commentaries
are published here in full. They have various disciplinary
backgrounds: one is a social scientist, one an ethicist, one a
psychiatrist, and one a developmental psychologist.
The commentaries are followed by a concluding section that
summarises the themes, commonalities, and differences
between their accounts of the training course. Authors differed
as to whether the diagnostic tool is a useful and necessary
endeavour. Nevertheless, all critiqued of the tool’s lack of
transparency, recognizing context, emotion, and differences in
interpretation and power imbalances as playing an unidentified
role in the assessment process. Based on this project, we
recommend that training for raters for such tools should be
accessible to a wider group of people, and incorporate more
explicit recognition of its own limitations and commercialisation.