Categorical versus Dimensional Structure of Autism

Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (ACAMH)

DOI: 10.13056/acamh.24547
In this Papers Podcast, Dr. Tom Frazier discusses his JCPP Advances paper ‘Categorical versus dimensional structure of autism spectrum disorder: A multi-method investigation’ (https://doi.org/10.1002/jcv2.12142). Tom is the first author of the paper.
There is an overview of the paper, methodology, key findings, and implications for practice.
Discussion points include:

• What is meant by ‘categorical’ and ‘dimensional’ in the context of neuropsychiatric diagnoses?
• The evidence that suggests that autism is ‘categorical’ instead of ‘dimensional’.
• The implications of this study for researchers and those searching for major drivers of the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) phenotype.
• The implication of findings for clinicians and other child and adolescent professionals.
• Whether these findings could change the way children and young people are assessed for autism.
• The implications of the results on the way autism is classified.

In this series, we speak to authors of papers published in one of ACAMH’s three journals. These are The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (JCPP); The Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMH) journal; and JCPP Advances.