Evaluating the Reliability and Sensitivity of the VB-MAPP as an Outcome Measure in Autism Research

Description

The VB-MAPP is a curriculum guide and an assessment tool that is commonly used in autism interventions. Little is known about its psychometric properties, specifically its inter-rater reliability. Moreover, few studies have utilized this measurement tool when evaluating longitudinal intervention outcomes in autism research. We evaluated the interrater reliability of the VB-MAPP and utilized it as an outcome measure for low-intensity behavioral interventions. The results indicated that the milestones had good reliability and the barriers had moderate reliability. However, some of the individual milestone domains and barrier domains did not fare as well. When used as an outcome measure in autism research, the VBMAPP provided similar findings as the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale and appeared to be more sensitive at detecting low-dosage intervention gains. The implications of these findings are discussed for practitioners and researchers who utilize the VB-MAPP as a curriculum guide and as an research tool.