Expanding the scope of telehealth evaluations in children with ASD

After institution shutdowns, it became impossible to assess children in person and many clinicians started to embrace telehealth evaluations. However, a critical part of the ASD assessment is cognitive testing, which has been difficult to adapt to a virtual environment. This study will build upon an ongoing effort to understand the precision of a standard measure of cognitive ability, the Kauffman Brief Intelligence Test, in telehealth settings. It will provide resources to validate the instrument so that assessments can be accurately made via remote methods, and possibly allow for the use of this online method of capturing cognitive function for families who may have limited time for in person evaluations. Finally, funding will be used to understand how a larger group of assessments called the Naturalistic Observation Diagnostic Assessment works in older children and adults. The findings will help the community better utilize effective telehealth resources for remote assessments and potentially reduce wait times for those evaluations after the pandemic has resolved.