Modified COSMIC 4
1978; Stone & Caro-Martinez, 1990; Wetherby, Yonclas, & Bryan, 1989). Communication in
ASD is therefore not only delayed but also deviant from the normal trajectory.
As core features of ASD, the forms and functions of social communication skills are a
focus of many early intervention targets for young children. However, randomised-controlled
trials in this area are relatively few (see, Lord et al., 2005; National Research Council, 2001;
Rogers & Vismara, 2008; for reviews) and there is a shortage of appropriate measurement tools
for outcome evaluation. The development and refinement of meaningful measures of social
communication skills to test the effectiveness of such programmes is therefore essential.
2. Observational measures of social communication behaviours
While naturalistic observation is arguably the most representative form of assessment for
evaluating social communication skills and conducting educational planning (Gerber, 2003;
Spears, Tollefson & Simpson, 2001; Wetherby, Schuler, & Prizant, 1997), few such standardised
instruments exist. Rather, current tools tend to evaluate the child’s skills during a structured
play setting, where an experienced examiner arranges specific activities, presses, and prompts, to
provide opportunities for the child to demonstrate his or her abilities (or lack thereof, as for
children with ASD). Such measures include the Early Social Communication Scales (ESCS;
Mundy, Hogan & Doehring, 1996); the Communication and Symbolic Behaviour Scales (CSBS;
Wetherby & Prizant, 2002), or the Social Communication Assessment for Toddlers with Autism
(SCATA; Drew et al., 2007). Originally designed as a diagnostic tool, the Autism Diagnostic
Observation Schedule - Generic (ADOS-G, Lord et al., 2000) is one such structured assessment
which has been incorporated as an outcome measure of social communication impairment in
some psychosocial and biomedical treatment studies (e.g. Aldred et al., 2004; Unis et al., 2002).