Measurement equivalence of the autism symptom phenotype in children and youth
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R) is a gold standard assessment of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) symptoms and behaviours. A key underlying assumption of studies using the ADI-R is that it measures the same phenotypic constructs across different populations (i.e., males/females, younger/older, verbal/nonverbal). The objectives of this study were to evaluate alternative measurement models for the autism symptom phenotype based on the ADI-R algorithm items and to examine the measurement equivalence of the most parsimonious and best fitting model across subgroups of interest. METHODS: Data came from the Autism Genome Project consortium and consisted of 3,628 children aged 4-18 years (84.2% boys and 75% verbal). Twenty-eight algorithm items applicable to both verbal and nonverbal participants were used in the analysis. Measurement equivalence of the autism phenotype was examined using categorical confirmatory factor analysis. RESULTS: A second-order model resembling the proposed DSM-5 two-factor structure of the phenotype showed good overall fit, but not for all the subgroups. The autism symptom phenotype was best indexed by the first-order, six-factor measurement model proposed by Liu et al. (2011). This model was well fitting and measurement equivalent across subgroups of participants (age, verbal ability and sex). CONCLUSIONS: The autism symptom phenotype is adequately characterized by a six-factor measurement model; this model appears to be measurement equivalent across subgroups of children and youth with ASD that differ in age, sex and verbal ability. The two-factor model provides equally good fit for the sample as a whole, but comparison of these two dimensions between subgroups that might differ in terms of age, sex or verbal ability is challenged by lack of measurement equivalence.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.013 | 0.055 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".