Establishing global eligibility criteria for a diagnosis of autism in a sporting context: availability of assessments and views of an expert panel

Section A
A systematic meta-review was conducted to examine review papers on autism assessment measures for older children, adolescents, and adults. Twenty review papers were summarised and evaluated using a narrative synthesis. Twenty-eight screening and fifteen diagnostic measures for autism were identified from the reviews, and the characteristics and psychometric properties of these measures were critically evaluated. There is a need for a more thorough investigation of a wider range psychometric properties for the screening and diagnostic measures. Overall, there was little information within the reviews about where measures have been validated or what languages they have been translated into which presents an opportunity for further research.

Section B
This study aimed to examine the views of an expert panel on a method for establishing global eligibility criteria for a diagnosis of autism in a sporting context.Twenty-seven international participants took part in a three-round Delphi panel using online surveys. The results of the study showed that there was high consensus around a gold standard process of eligibility. There were lower levels of consensus and agreement around whether there should be an alternative process for countries that are unable to access the gold standard. Key challenges and barriers were identified including social and cultural differences, attention to co-morbidity and the heterogeneity of autism. The need for further research to explore how autism impacts performance during sports competition was discussed.