BACKGROUND

Griffiths III is a child-friendly and play-oriented direct gold-standard measure of a 0-6-year-old child's developmental profile. It is a measure that helps practitioners in detecting the weaknesses in children who have an increased likelihood or a diagnosis of neurodevelopmental disorders, e.g., autism.

OBJECTIVES

Following the PICO protocol, two research questions addressed the current systematic search and review (Prospero registration: CRD42024554286): (RQ1); (RQ2).

METHODS

Six studies have been reviewed: three case-control studies, a case report study, and two studies examining the effectiveness of early autism-specific interventions. According to the study design, the methodological quality was evaluated using three standardised protocols: STROBE; JBI; CEC.

RESULTS

The results highlighted that the Language and Communication and Personal-Social-Emotional domains are the most impaired in autistic children and in those with an increased likelihood (RQ1). The results outlined that early target intervention enhanced the same domains (RQ2).

CONCLUSIONS

In conclusion, the findings highlight the importance of screening not only for autism traits but also for impairments in language, communication, and socio-emotional skills. The future direction of the results is discussed.