Mervis Carolyn B, Klein-Tasman Bonita P
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky 40292, USA.
J Autism Dev Disord. 2004 Feb;34(1):7-17. doi: 10.1023/b:jadd.0000018069.69562.b8.
Group-matching designs are commonly used to identify the diagnosis-specific characteristics of children with developmental disabilities. In this paper, we address three issues central to the use of this design. The first concerns the alpha level to be used for considering groups to be matched on the control variable(s). The second involves the measurement characteristics of the control and target variables. We discuss the properties of standard scores, raw scores, and age equivalents and argue against the use of age equivalents. In addition, we consider the appropriateness of the commonly made prediction that groups that are matched for a control variable such as language ability or nonverbal reasoning ability but are not matched for chronological age should perform at equivalent levels on the target variable. Finally, we discuss issues related to the interpretation of significant between-group differences on the target variable, assuming groups are well-matched on the control variables, and describe the benefits of a method that focuses on characterizing a disorder on a case-by-case basis and then aggregating the cases, using the measures of sensitivity and specificity from signal detection theory.
组匹配设计通常用于识别发育障碍儿童的特定诊断特征。在本文中，我们讨论了使用这种设计的三个核心问题。第一个问题涉及用于考虑在控制变量上匹配的组的α水平。第二个问题涉及控制变量和目标变量的测量特征。我们讨论了标准分数、原始分数和年龄当量的属性，并反对使用年龄当量。此外，我们考虑了一个常见预测的合理性，即对于诸如语言能力或非语言推理能力等控制变量进行匹配但实际年龄不匹配的组，在目标变量上应表现出相当的水平。最后，假设组在控制变量上匹配良好，我们讨论了与目标变量上显著的组间差异解释相关的问题，并描述了一种方法的优点，该方法侧重于逐案描述一种障碍，然后使用信号检测理论中的敏感性和特异性度量对病例进行汇总。
