Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist

The Autism Treatment Evaluation Scale (ATEC) is a 77-item diagnostic assessment tool that was developed by Bernard Rimland and Stephen Edelson at the Autism Research Institute. The ATEC was originally designed to evaluate the effectiveness of autism treatments, but it may also be beneficial as a screening tool for children. The questionnaire, which is completed by a parent, takes about 10–15 minutes to complete and is designed for use with children ages 5–12. The ATEC is currently available in 17 different languages.

Several research studies support the ATEC as a reliable and valid instrument in the assessment of children’s autism symptoms and improvements. ATEC’s subscale measurements of behavior, cognitive awareness, and communication correlated significantly with other standardized measures of the same characteristics. Research has also found the ATEC to be successful in measuring interventional effects as well as tracking behavioral development over periods of time. However, studies analyzing the cross-cultural validity of the ATEC have yielded mixed results.

Many psychological measures for autism assess stability over time. However, with the rise of various preventative programs for autism, there is an increased need for these measures to assess change over time. Additionally, not all measures orientated towards infants and toddlers are appropriate for older children as they continue to develop. The ATEC was created to measure the success of these preventative programs and measures change over time in children of various ages. High quality practice parameters have now been established to help guide the assessment and treatment of ASD.

Questions are divided into four subscales based on content.

For Sections 1-3, parents are asked to read the statement in each item and indicate whether it is "not true/descriptive," "somewhat true/descriptive," or "very true/descriptive" of their child. Section 4 asks parents to indicate whether the statements describe something that is "not a problem," a "minor problem," a "moderate problem," or a "serious problem" for their child.

Total scores on the ATEC range from 0-180 and are calculated by summing the scores of each subscale. In general, a higher score indicates a greater degree of impairment from symptoms. Responses to each question are assigned a numeric value, and then added together.

Both subscale scores and total scores can be used to calculate a percentile of severity that the participant falls under, relative to score distributions provided by the Autism Research Institute. The following criteria for interpreting scores of the ATEC are as follows:

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