Using Carey Temperament Scales to assess behavioral style in children with autism spectrum disorders.

Many researchers have suggested that temperament information could be useful for understanding the behavioral variability within the autism spectrum. The purpose of this brief report is to examine temperament profiles of 110 children with ASD (ages 3-8 years, 61 with Autistic Disorder, 42 with PDD-NOS; and 7 with Asperger Disorder) via a commonly used parent report measure of child temperament. Internal consistency of temperament dimensions, test-retest reliability, descriptions of means and standard deviations are examined, relative to previously published norms. Internal consistency of the dimensions and test-retest reliability were comparable to published norms; however, children with autism were rated as presenting with more extreme scores than typically-developing children on several dimensions. Limitations and implications for future work are discussed.