The Childhood Autism Spectrum Test, abbreviated as CAST and formerly titled the ''Childhood Asperger Syndrome Test'', is a tool to screen for

autism spectrum disorder The autism spectrum, often referred to as just autism or in the context of a professional diagnosis autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or autism spectrum condition (ASC), is a neurodevelopmental condition (or conditions) characterized by difficulti ...

in children aged 4–11 years, in a non-clinical setting. It is also called the ''Social and Communication Development Questionnaire''.

Development

The questionnaire was developed by the

Autism Research Centre The Autism Research Centre (ARC) is a research institute that is a part of the Department of Developmental Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, England. ARC's research goal is to understand the biomedical causes of autism spectrum condit ...

at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

, by Fiona J Scott,

Simon Baron-Cohen Sir Simon Philip Baron-Cohen (born 15 August 1958) is a British clinical psychologist and professor of developmental psychopathology at the University of Cambridge. He is the director of the university's Autism Research Centre and a Fellow o ...

, Patrick Bolton, and Carol Brayne.

Pilot Study

The pilot study was used to discern the preliminary cutoff scores for the CAST. Parents of 13 children with

Asperger Syndrome Asperger syndrome (AS), also known as Asperger's, is a former neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of beha ...

and 37 typically developing children completed the CAST questionnaire. There were significant differences in average scores, with the Asperger Syndrome sample average of 21.08 (range 15–31) and the typical sample average of 4.73 (range 0–13).

Main Study

Parents of 1,150

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...

aged children were sent the CAST questionnaire, with 199 responders and 174 taking part in the full data analysis. The results suggested that, compared to other screening tools currently available, the CAST may be useful for identifying children at risk for autism spectrum disorders, in a mainstream non-clinical sample.

Additional Research

Research is ongoing to establish accurate sensitivity data, validity,

reliability Reliability, reliable, or unreliable may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Computing * Data reliability (disambiguation), a property of some disk arrays in computer storage * High availability * Reliability (computer networking), a ...

, to replicate current findings in a larger and geographically more diverse sample, and to study the epidemiological issues in greater detail. The

PhenX Toolkit The PhenX Toolkit is a web-based catalog of high-priority measures related to complex diseases, phenotypic traits and environmental exposures. These measures were selected by working groups of experts using a consensus process. Use of PhenX measur ...

uses CAST as its child protocol for symptoms of autism spectrum disorders.

Format

The CAST questionnaire contains 39 yes-or-no questions about the child's social behaviors and communication tendencies. It also contains a separate

special needs In clinical diagnostic and functional development, special needs (or additional needs) refers to individuals who require assistance for disabilities that may be medical, mental, or psychological. Guidelines for clinical diagnosis are given in b ...

section that asks about other

comorbid In medicine, comorbidity - from Latin morbus ("sickness"), co ("together"), -ity (as if - several sicknesses together) - is the presence of one or more additional conditions often co-occurring (that is, concomitant or concurrent) with a primary ...

disorders that the child might have.

References

External links

CAST questionnaire - PDF format

CAST questionnaire - Online format
{{Autism resources Autism screening and assessment tools Screening and assessment tools in child and adolescent psychiatry