Traditional assessment methods for autism have several limitations, such as cost, length of the assessments and subsequent long waiting lists (often extending to two years), and reduced accessibility. Additionally, conventional assessment tools have questionable applicability to non-white, non-English speaking and non-male populations. There is a need for novel, efficient, equitable and culturally sensitive autism diagnostic assessments.
What are we doing?
The Children’s Autism Technology-Assisted Assessments (CHATA) project is the development and empirical examination of a new, autism diagnostic pathway for children up to five years old, which will be offered via Telehealth, integrated within usual NHS digital systems and applicable to ethnically and linguistically diverse populations.
We will analyse the data from the intervention development and pilot implementation to estimate diagnostic accuracy, validity, reliability, and acceptability of the new telehealth assessment.
How will it help?
The rapid rise of telehealth and the need to provide accurate and convenient services to diverse populations necessitate the development of novel assessments for autism. We aim to develop a culturally sensitive and accurate assessment, which will transcend geographical and linguistic barriers and help reduce costs, waiting times and inequities in current autism assessment in the UK. We anticipate our findings will make this novel assessment method applicable to other populations nationally and internationally.
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