What is STAT?

The Screening Tool for Autism in Two-Year Olds (STAT) is an empirically-derived, interactive measure developed to screen for autism in children between 24 and 36 months of age. It consists of 12 activities in the areas of play, imitation, and communication that can be administered in 20 minutes.

Purpose of the STAT

The purpose of the STAT is to facilitate the early identification of autism, so that children in need of specialized services can be directed to the most appropriate assessment and/or intervention programs and can begin to receive specialized intervention at young ages.

Who can administer the STAT?

The STAT was designed for use by a wide range of community professionals working with young children in assessment or intervention settings. The STAT is used by psychologists, pediatricians, speech-language pathologists, social workers, preschool teachers, and early intervention specialists.

How can the STAT be used?

The STAT has both clinical and research applications. It can be used clinically for diagnostic screening, parent education, and intervention programming. It can be used in research settings to screen for study eligibility and to provide a standard context for measuring core social-communicative behaviors.

How can I get trained on the STAT?

Because the STAT is an interactive measure of subtle social-communicative behaviors, we provide training workshops at Vanderbilt University on administration and scoring. Certification for independent use of the STAT can be obtained by completing three steps:

Attending a STAT training workshop
Scoring a STAT videotape that we provide
Demonstrating administration fidelity and achieving scoring reliability on two STATs that you conduct yourself

COMING SOON!

A WEB-BASED STAT TRAINING TUTORIAL

We are in the final stages of developing a web-based training tutorial that is designed to train professionals how to use the STAT. Similar to the STAT training workshops, the tutorial will provide thorough instruction on item administration and scoring, and includes video examples, practice tests, and descriptions of common administration errors. Instructions for interpreting STAT results and explaining results to parents are provided.

Check back soon for more information about how to purchase the STAT Training Tutorial and Materials Kit.