Challenges in Measuring Social Communication Changes in Verbally Fluent Autistic Individuals: Development of the Brief Observation of Social Communication Change: Fluent 1 and Fluent 2 (BOSCC-F1/F2).
Academic Article
Overview
abstract
PURPOSE: The current study investigated the utility of the Brief Observation of Social Communication Change-Fluent 1 and Fluent 2 (BOSCC-F1/F2) as a potential outcome measure of social communication change by analyzing the measure's psychometric properties and initial validity. METHODS: The BOSCC-F1/F2 coding scheme was applied to 245 caregiver-implemented administrations across 114 English speaking participants between the ages of 6 and 44 years. Participants had a documented diagnosis of autism, fluent speech, and were receiving behavioral intervention during the study period. RESULTS: Test-retest and inter-rater reliability were good for the Early Communication and Social Reciprocity/Language domains, and fair for the Restricted and Repetitive Behavior domain. There were no statistically significant changes in the Early Communication, Social Reciprocity, Social Communication Domain or Core Total. There were also no changes in SRS Total T-scores over the same measurement period. CONCLUSION: The BOSCC-F1/F2 demonstrated good inter-rater and test-retest reliability with a well-fitting 3-factor structure. Yet, meaningful social communication changes were not observed over time. The goals of intervention should be considered when determining the utility of the BOSCC-F1/F2 as an outcome measure. Future research should explore the validity of the BOSCC-F1/F2 using different intervention modalities and intensities.
