AGRE DIAGNOSTIC EVALUATIONS

Family Diagnosis and Characterization:
Current Characterization: On the family enrollment form, families identify the diagnosis they received from their physician or autism specialist. Families with two or more children diagnosed with Autism, PDD or Asperger’s syndrome are accepted into the program. AGRE requires that the family have an Autism Diagnostic Interview (ADI) and an Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) conducted to confirm the diagnosis and characterize the affected family members along the autism spectrum.

Currently, only the diagnosis of "Autism" is supported by the empirically defined algorithms of the ADI-R. However, in order to assist researchers in determining whether or not to include data from affected individuals who did not meet the strict criteria for Autism on the ADI-R, AGRE has developed alternate affected status categories of NQA (Not Quite Autism) and Broad Spectrum. For more information on these affected status categories, please go to Affected Status Descriptions.

AGRE uses experienced ADI-R and ADOS raters who travel to the family home to conduct the diagnostic evaluations. All AGRE raters are trained under the supervision of Catherine Lord, Ph.D., who is currently at the University of Michigan Autism and Communication Disorders Center. These raters are initially checked for reliability and are subsequently monitored on a regular basis by experienced ADI-R and ADOS trainers.

The ADI-R and ADOS assessments are videotaped for quality control and use in diagnostic case conferences. Only individuals whose diagnosis is confirmed with autism spectrum disorder are published in the AGRE pedigree catalog.

Other measures conducted during the diagnostic evaluation include the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, the Raven’s Colored Progressive Matrices, and the Picture Peabody Vocabulary Test. In addition to the clinical evaluation, a full in-home medical exam, including physicals, neurological exams and detailed medical histories, are conducted by pediatric neurologists. All data collected from these evaluations are entered into the online AGRE phenotypic database.

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OF AGRE DIAGNOSTIC EVALUATIONS