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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry
Sec. Autism and Other Neurodevelopmental Disorders
Volume 4 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frcha.2025.1497632

Co-Design of the Neurodevelopment Assessment Scale

Provisionally accepted
Tsz Ying Wong Tsz Ying Wong 1Syeda Ishra Azim Syeda Ishra Azim 1Christa Lam-Cassettari Christa Lam-Cassettari 1Ping-I Lin Ping-I Lin 1,2Antonio Mendoza Diaz Antonio Mendoza Diaz 1,3,4Alicia Montgomery Alicia Montgomery 1Anne Masi Anne Masi 1Kylie-Ann Mallitt Kylie-Ann Mallitt 1,5Andrew Whitehouse Andrew Whitehouse 6Mark R Dadds Mark R Dadds 7Valsamma Eapen Valsamma Eapen 1*
  • 1 School of Clinical Medicine, Discipline of Psychiatry and Mental Health, UNSW Medicine & Health, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
  • 2 Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience, School of Medicine, Saint Louis University, Saint Louis, Missouri, United States
  • 3 Tasmanian Centre for Mental Health Service Innovation, Tasmanian Health Service (THS), Hobart, Australia
  • 4 School of Psychology, The University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia
  • 5 Sydney School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney,, Sydney, Australia
  • 6 Telethon Kids Institute, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia
  • 7 School of Psychology, Faculty of Science, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) have high comorbidity rates and shared etiology. Nevertheless, NDD assessment is diagnosis-driven and focuses on symptom profiles of individual disorders, which hinders diagnosis and treatment. There is also no evidence-based, standardized transdiagnostic approach currently available to provide a full clinical picture of individuals with NDDs. The pressing need for transdiagnostic assessment led to the development of the Neurodevelopment Assessment Scale (NAS). This paper describes the co-design process used in the development of NAS prototype with stakeholders including individuals with NDDs, parents of children with NDDs, and health professionals. Results indicated stakeholder consensus that NAS would be useful for NDD assessment, and included recommendations for fine-tuning the way some questions were asked (e.g., child's diagnoses), question flow (e.g., branching logic), and the language and presentation of the prototype (e.g., readability). Stakeholders also suggested the administration protocol should be flexible using electronic, face-to-face, online formats etc.

    Keywords: neurodevelopmental disorder, Transdiagnostic assessment, co-design, Consumer and community involvement, psychological assessment

    Received: 17 Sep 2024; Accepted: 07 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Wong, Azim, Lam-Cassettari, Lin, Mendoza Diaz, Montgomery, Masi, Mallitt, Whitehouse, Dadds and Eapen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Valsamma Eapen, School of Clinical Medicine, Discipline of Psychiatry and Mental Health, UNSW Medicine & Health, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

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