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Abstract
This study investigated practitioners’ perception of the treatment validity in autism of two assessments of general cognitive abilities: intellectual quotient (IQ) and dynamic assessment, and two assessments related to causal cognitive theories in autism: theory of mind and executive function. The views of 14 educational and clinical psychologists were sought through focus group methodology in relation to three aspects of treatment validity: treatment utility, cost-benefit analysis, and incremental validity. Practitioners evaluated the treatment validity of the assessment measures related to causal theories of autism more favourably than the measures of general cognitive abilities. The theory of mind battery was most positively evaluated in terms of its incremental validity, i.e. it was seen to provide ‘unique’ information about children with autism not readily offered by other methods.
Acknowledgement
Dr Aljunied’s work on this study was supported by a PhD scholarship awarded by the Ministry of Education, Singapore.