Gilliam Autism Rating Scale - Second Edition (GARS-2)

GARS-3 is now available >

The GARS-2, a revision of the popular Gilliam Autism Rating Scale, is a norm-referenced instrument that assists teachers and clinicians in identifying and diagnosing autism in individuals aged 3 years to 22 years and in estimating the severity of the child's disorder.

Items on the GARS-2 are based on the definitions of autism adopted by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: Fourth Edition-Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR).

The assessment consists of 42 clearly stated items describing the characteristic behaviours of a person with autism. The items are grouped into three subtests:

• Stereotyped Behaviour
• Communication
• Social Interaction.

Using objective, frequency-based ratings, the entire scale can be completed and scored in 5 to 10 minutes.

A structured interview form is included for gathering diagnostically important information from the child's parents.

The GARS-2 was normed on a representative sample of 1,107 people with autism from 48 states across the USA.

It has strong psychometric characteristics that were confirmed through studies of the test's reliability and validity. Coefficients of reliability (internal consistency and test-retest) for the subscales and entire test are all large to very large in magnitude.

New features:

• A structured parent interview form replaces the Early Development subscale providing examiners with diagnostically significant information about the child's development during early childhood
• All new norms were created and the normative sample is more clearly described
• A separate booklet, Instructional Objectives for Children Who Have Autism, is included in the test kit to assist in the formulation of instructional goals and objectives based on the results from the GARS-2 assessment. In this way, instruction can be directly related to assessment results.