Determining the Clinical Utility of the Merrill-Palmer-Revised Scales of Development in a Sample of Children with Autistic Disorder

The aim of this study was to determine aspects of the clinical usefulness of the Merrill-Palmer-Revised Scales of Development (M-P-R) in children diagnosed with Autistic Disorder (AD). The revised developmental measure reports strong levels of reliability and validity in a standardization sample. While some clinical subsamples were included to help establish the test’s validity, the group of children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) was limited to a sample size of 14. The present study recruited 50 children with Autistic Disorder (41 male, 9 female) ranging in age from 40 months to 78-months, along with a matched non-clinical sample that was obtained from the M-P-R standardization data. Each group’s performance was obtained from the Cognitive Battery, Gross Motor Battery, and supplemental language and parent rating forms. Observations were also made to the special groups outlined in the M-P-R Manual. The results suggested that the M-P-R is a tool sensitive in identifying developmental delay, but not specific in differentiating among children diagnosed with AD and other common early childhood disorders. In part, the large variability in test performance across the AD sample contributed to this diagnostic weakness.