Development and Validation of a Questionnaire for Measuring Severity of Autism Spectrum Disorder and other Neurodevelopmental Disorder in Bengali Language

Abstract Background: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other neurodevelopmental disorder among children have an increasing prevalence globally. Measuring the severity of such condition is of great value for parents and clinicians. There are limited validated tool to assess the severity of ASD in the regional language. Aims: This study aims to evaluate validity and reliability of a questionnaire on the assessment of severity of ASD and neurodevelopmental disorder in the Bengali language. Methods: After obtaining ethical approval, this psychometric study was conducted among 104 children attending district Early Intervention Center in Darjeeling district. Results: Items were generated by literature review. Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy of 0.67 and significant Bartlett’s test of sphericity ( P < 0.05) indicates that the sample size is adequate for factor analysis. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) revealed that 27 items out of 29 items were suitable for the Bengali version of modified questionnaire. The factorial analysis revealed five domains such as language, communication, cognitive awareness, socialization, and behavior that explain 54.2% estimated variance providing reasonable representation of underlying constructs in the questionnaire. The values of the fit indices in CFA were acceptable. Overall reliability was measured by Cronbach’s alpha (0.934) and McDonald’s omega (0.902). Conclusions: The questionnaire is suitable for use in Bengali population as it shows acceptable validity and reliability. However, more research should be done in different parts of the country to evaluate its effectiveness in various cultural and medical settings.