Clinical Study Comparison of Adaptive Behavior Measures for

Copyright © 2013 Christopher Lopata et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Adaptive behavior rating scales are frequently used to gather information on the adaptive functioning of children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders (HFASDs), yet little is known about the extent to which these measures yield comparable results. This study was conducted to (a) document the parent-rated VABS-II, BASC-2, and ABAS-II adaptive behavior profiles of 6- to 11-year-olds with HFASDs (including relative strengths and weaknesses); (b) examine the extent to which these measures yielded similar scores on comparable scales; and (c) assess potential discrepancies between cognitive ability and adaptive behavior across the measures. All three adaptive measures revealed significant deficits overall for the sample, with the VABS-II and ABAS-II indicating relative weaknesses in social skills and strengths in academic-related skills. Cross-measure comparisons indicated significant differences in the absolute magnitude of scores. In general, the VABS-II yielded significantly higher scores than the BASC-2 and ABAS-II. However, the VABS-II and ABAS-II yielded scores that did not significantly differ for adaptive social skills which is a critical area to assess for children with HFASDs. Results also indicated significant discrepancies between th