Functional Outcomes of Children Identified Early in the Developmental Period as at Risk for ASD Utilizing the The Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa).

Early identification of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is regarded as crucial for swift access to early intervention and, subsequently, better outcomes later in life. However, current instruments miss large proportions of children who later go on to be diagnosed with ASD, raising a question of what these instruments measure. The present study utilized data from the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort Study and the Autism Birth Cohort study to explore the subsequent developmental and diagnostic characteristics of children raising developmental concern on the six-critical discriminative item criterion of the M-CHAT (DFA6) at 18 months of age (N = 834).