Goal attainment scaling as an outcome measure in randomized controlled trials of psychosocial interventions in autism.

Resource type
Journal Article
Authors/contributors
Title
Goal attainment scaling as an outcome measure in randomized controlled trials of psychosocial interventions in autism.
Abstract
Goal attainment scaling (GAS) holds promise as an idiographic approach for measuring outcomes of psychosocial interventions in community settings. GAS has been criticized for untested assumptions of scaling level (i.e., interval or ordinal), inter-individual equivalence and comparability, and reliability of coding across different behavioral observation methods. We tested assumptions of equality between GAS descriptions for outcome measurement in a randomized trial (i.e., measurability, equidistance, level of difficulty, comparability of behavior samples collected from teachers vs. researchers and live vs. videotape). Results suggest GAS descriptions can be evaluated for equivalency, that teacher collected behavior samples are representative, and that varied sources of behavior samples can be reliably coded. GAS is a promising measurement approach. Recommendations are provided to ensure methodological quality.
Publication
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
Volume
42
Issue
9
Pages
1974-1983
Date
2012-09-01
Journal Abbr
J Autism Dev Disord
Language
en
ISSN
1573-3432
Accessed
21/09/2023, 15:17
Library Catalogue
Springer Link
Citation
Ruble, L., McGrew, J. H., & Toland, M. D. (2012). Goal attainment scaling as an outcome measure in randomized controlled trials of psychosocial interventions in autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 42(9), 1974–1983. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-012-1446-7