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Nayely Moran

Emily Putnam

Psychology 1010

9 December 2017

Observation of Autism

There are many issues when it comes to lifespan and development, some can be very

easily detected and treated while others are harder to see and left untreated until it becomes

obvious. Autism is a serious development disorder that impares the ability to communicate and

interact. In most cases autism can be detected at a very young age, but in some children, it is

more difficult to be diagnosed. In the observational study done by licensed psychologists Terisa

P. Gabrielsen, Megan Farley, Leslie Speer, Michele Villalobos, Courtney N. Baker, and Judith

Miller wanted to be able to diagnose children with autism in two ten-minute observation videos

where they measured five behaviors: responding, initiating, vocalizing, play, and response to

name. Raters were asked for autism referral impressions based solely on these 10-minute

observations Participants were screened with the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers and

the Infant Toddler Checklist and kept in the study if children screened positive on at least 1

questionnaire. All methods included screening, evaluation, and video recording.

Results suggest that during brief observations, typical behaviors in some children who

have autism can exceed atypical behaviors in frequency, to such a degree that it was often

difficult even for clinicians experienced in autism spectrum disorder assessment to correctly

determine if enough atypical behavior existed to merit a referral for autism evaluation. They
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came to an inclusion that children who have autism display high rates of typical behavior

alongside atypical behavior. Children who do not have autism show atypical behavior at times, a

statistically smaller ratio than children who have autism. Even clinicians who have experience

and expertise in autism may not detect differences in the atypical/typical behavior ratios in a 10-

to 20-minute observation. Also, receptive language abilities are an important area of focus in

early diagnosis of developmental delays

This observational experiment was very informative on the behavioral traits of autism,

and how autistic children would respond to social situations. I like how in this study they used a

different method of diagnosing autism instead of going for checkups as a child and seeing

symptoms, the use of videos of the children and watch out for specific traits. Psychologist use

their skills to visually see the characteristics of the children and to identify if they are atypical or

typical. Their method was unique and a distinct way of conducting this experiment. Also the

application of the 5 behavioral categories that they used as a checklist based their experiment on

these controls which are: responding, initiating, vocalizing, play, and response to name, to see if

the subject is atypical or typical. subjects reacted to these social situations were compared to the

results of other children. For the children who carried the gene of autism had that advantage of

knowing at an early age this way it would help the parents have that advantage to know how to

deal with this disorder. The experiment added a help for the parents in knowing their child is

autistic and they can adapt their lifestyle to this new finding, This experiment benefited the

parents just as much as the psychologists

On the other hand, there were a few draw backs from the article. Statistic material was

confusing on the charts. There were several foot notes and formulas relating to just one chart.

The statistics should have been more clear to improve understanding of all the data given. The
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length of the videos that the psychologist were basing their diagnosis were only two 10 minutes

videos. With this short amount of video time it would be extremely hard to realize if the child

has this disorder. Children are complex, they are still discovering things around them and

themselves. I would want to know why they made this time limit and why they didn’t choose to

expend the time frame. I think it could be possible for the psychologist to make a false diagnosis

on this short period of time. The child might have felt bad that day and acted different versus if

they were in their house or in a comfortable setting that they are used to. Therefor the outcome

might have been varied. In addition to the experiment that was conducted the phycologist could

put the children who were “autistic” into further testing for assurance.

Many children who are sexually abused have some of the same traits of someone who is

autistic, they show the same signs of someone who has had trouble when they were younger. A

sexually assault victim would not want to be touched as well as some children who have autism

that don’t like to be touched either then this would leave room for psychologist to make a

mistakes on the way these children are being diagnosed for the same thing but could be acting

this way for two completely different reasons. My final con about this observational experiment

is the lack of information given about gender. On further research about this disorder I found out

that it was more common in males than it was in females. If the experimenters were more

specific on what gender the children were it would have helped other psychologist compare and

contrast their results to the one of this experiments, it also would help people like myself to have

a better understanding on the statistics of the actual disorder.

In conclusion, I found this experiment very interesting. It tapped into one of the many

disorders of development. I was very impressed with the creativity of the observation, using

video footage as their sole material was bold and complex. This study is extremely important to
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researchers wanting to find new information on autism. This study explores variables involving

atypical and typical children. Autism occurs most often in males than in females, there are more

than 200,000 US cases per year. Early recognition, medication as well as behavioral, educational,

and family therapies may reduce symptoms and support development and learning.
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Reference

 Gabrielsen, T. P., Farley, M., Speer, L., Villalobos, M., Baker, C. N., & Miller, J. (2015).

Identifying Autism in a Brief Observation. Pediatrics,135(2). doi:10.1542/peds.2014-

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 https://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism

 Electronic copy of article:

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/pediatrics/135/2/e330.full.pdf