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The Gilliam Autism Rating Scale (GARS - 2), a pilot study for the Greek autistic population

Background

The present research project (a pilot study) aims to examine and to validate the Gilliam autism rating scale to the Greek population, and what the standardization probabilities are.

Materials and methods

In this research took part 30 participants (15 non autistic and 15 autistic subjects), recruited from the Greek health settings, at city of Ioannina Greece. The sample was taken in random order. The questionnaire, which was administrated, was a rating scale that originally created by James Gilliam. GARS-2 is a revised version of the Gilliam Autism Rating Scale (GARS) for identifying and diagnosing autism in individuals ages 3 through 22 years. It contains new normative data. All 42 test items are based on the most current definitions of autism by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: Fourth Edition-Text Revision (DSM-IV TR) [1] and the Autism Society of America [2]. Test items are divided into three subscales: Stereotyped Behaviors, Communication, and Social Interaction.

Results

Statistical analysis of the data revealed that the Test items, which are divided into three subscales: Stereotyped Behaviours, Communication, and Social Interaction, did have affection on the autistic quotient for the autistic sample (using a linear model and regression). No affection on the autistic quotient was noticed for the non - autistic sample. Non-statistical significant differences were found in both autistic and non - autistic sample, between the autistic quotient and sex (autistic, t= 0.24, df=28, NS),and non - autistic sample (t= 0.13, df= 28, NS), autistic quotient and age (autistic, t= −0.11, df=28, NS) and non - autistic sample (t= −0.31, df=28, NS).

Conclusions

It seams positive that the GARS can go under standardization for the Greek autistic population. From the analysis of the data it is obvious and for both Greek autistic sample that every subscale does not interprets the autistic quotient by itself but the three of then in summary, as it is for the US population. Finally the advantages and the disadvantages of the scale were also discussed.

References

  1. American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostical and Statistical manual of mental disorders. 1994, Washington, DC, 4th Ed

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  2. Autism Society of America: Definition of Autism. The Advocate: Newsletter of the Autism Society of America. 1994, Silver Spring, MD

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Open Access This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Tafiadis, D., Loli, G., Tsanousa, E. et al. The Gilliam Autism Rating Scale (GARS - 2), a pilot study for the Greek autistic population. Ann Gen Psychiatry 7 (Suppl 1), S191 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1186/1744-859X-7-S1-S191

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1744-859X-7-S1-S191

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