Response to Another Student Discussion

Dayane De Leon

Unit 7 Discussion 2

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The ubiquity of autism is the subject of multiple scholarly studies. Dependable tests to diagnose and measure the severity of autism are essential to psychologists’ increasing understanding of this disorder. The Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) aids in identifying children with autism and verifying symptom severity through measureable ratings based on direct observation (WPS, 2017). The CARS was developed to help classify individuals that display behaviors which are characteristic of autism.

I chose to research CARS because it is useful for my work with children on the autism spectrum. However, in researching numerous CARS peer-reviewed articles, reading the publisher site, and reviews on the Mental Measurements Yearbook (MMY), I had great difficulties locating information that Unit 7 assignment requires. For instance, the assignment asked us to write about the fairness or appropriateness of your selected test, possible modifications, accommodations, alternate formats, language formats and/or considerations. After spending hours of reading several articles, none of them mentioned these requirements. CARS is a test which is formatted for simplicity, needing only a pencil and paper (WPS, 2017). I think because CARS is a simple test for clinicians (based on observation), a questionnaire for parents, or other recordings from teacher and caregivers that the test has yet to advance to other forms of accommodations. In addition, I could not find information where the articles wrote on the test’s construction, item development, and procedures utilized in construction to minimize offensive content for test takers.

We as students were given a list called “List of Tests by Type” in Unit 2 to pick a test that would pertain to all of our writing assignments throughout the quarter. It is my opinion that the tests that were on that list should have been thoroughly checked to make sure that when students looked up peer-reviewed articles from Capella library site, those available articles should answer all the information that our future assignments ask of us. Unfortunately, I am coming across that is not the case with regard to Childhood Autism Rating Scale articles and the requirements for our assignments. This has been a great disappointment for me as I discover the published information about CARS does not neatly correspond to the expectations of this course. I wonder if other students are coming across this dilemma and what is going to be done about it for future students?

Reference

WPS. (2017). Childhood Autism Rating Scale, Second Edition (CARS-2). Retrieved from http://www.wpspublish.com/store/p/2696/childhood-autism-rating-scale-second-edition-cars-2

Dayane De Leon

MS in Psychology, ABA

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