A Preliminary Trial of an Early Surveillance Program for Autism and Developmental Delays within General Practices

There are inequities in engagement with established early childhood developmental surveillance programs, eclipsing disadvantaged families. The current study sought to address this by dovetailing developmental surveillance with immunization visits and other opportunistic contacts with children at general practices). While 53 General Practices were recruited, significant COVID-19 disruptions resulted in only 81 children being screened (both parent-administered and GP completed). Of the 81 children, 11 screened positive and all of them along with 5% of screen negatives (i.e. 4 children) received clinician-administered reference-standard assessment for autism and developmental delay (DD) using Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS), Autism Diagnostic Interview Schedule –Revised (ADI-R), and Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL). All children found by reference-standard assessment to have probable autism and/or DD had screened positive during the screening process, and 90.9% of children who screened positive were found by reference-standard assessment to have probable DD or autism. The findings provide early evidence for the feasibility and usefulness of parent completed and GP administered developmental measures during opportunistic contacts with GPs as a promising method to facilitate early identification of DD or autism.