CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 198Down syndrome and intellectual disability researchFamily and Disability Support ResearchAutism Spectrum Disorder Research

Evaluation of An Activities of Daily Living Scale for Adolescents and Adults with Developmental Disabilities

Open access
Maenner, Matthew J., Smith, Leann E., Hong, Jinkuk, Makuch, Renee, Greenberg, Jan S., Mailick, Marsha R.·2013·Disability and Health Journal
DOI 10.1016/j.dhjo.2012.08.005PMC PMC3531884
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Background Activity limitations are an important and useful dimension of disability, but there are few validated measures of activity limitations for adolescents and adults with developmental disabilities.Objective/hypothesis To describe the development of the Waisman Activities of Daily Living (W-ADL) Scale for adolescents and adults with developmental disabilities, and systematically evaluate its measurement properties according to an established set of criteria.Methods The W-ADL was administered among four longitudinally studied groups of adolescents and adults with developmental disabilities: 406 with autism; 147 with fragile-X syndrome; 169 with Down syndrome; and 292 with intellectual disability of other or unknown origin. The W-ADL contains 17 activities and each is rated on a 3-point scale (0 = "does not do at all", 1 = "does with help", 2 = "independent"), and a standard set of criteria were used to evaluate its measurement properties.Results Across the disability groups, Cronbach's alphas ranged from 0.88 to 0.94, and a single-factor structure was most parsimonious. The W-ADL was reliable over time, with weighted kappas between 0.92 and 0.93. Criterion and construct validity were supported through substantial associations with the Vineland Screener, need for respite services, caregiving burden, and competitive employment. No floor or ceiling effects were present. There were significant group differences in W-ADL scores by maternally reported level of intellectual disability (mild, moderate, severe, profound).Conclusions The W-ADL exceeded the recommended threshold for each quality criterion the authors evaluated. This freely available tool is an efficient measure of activities of daily living for surveys and epidemiological research concerning adolescents and adults with developmental disabilities.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.dhjo.2012.08.005

Cites

42 of 42 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • W-ADL has good internal consistency in different clinical populations, with Cronbach's alpha between 0.77 and 0.94.

    “W-ADL has good internal consistency in different clinical populations, with a Cronbach’s alpha value between 0.77 and 0.94 [16].”

    From Enhancing Ecological Validity: Virtual Reality Assessment of Executive Functioning in Children and Adolescents with ADHD (2024) · cites this paper as [16]

    The Results report good internal consistency across four clinical groups, but the reported Cronbach’s alpha values range from 0.88 to 0.94, not 0.77 to 0.94. The cited paper therefore supports the claim about internal consistency, but not its lower bound. (LLM, conf=0.90)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • The ADHD group had a lower score on the W-ADL Scale, indicating a greater need for support to perform ADL independently.

    “On the other hand, the ADHD group had a lower score on the W-ADL Scale [16] (U = 520, p = 0.037), indicating a greater need for support to perform ADL independently.”

    From Enhancing Ecological Validity: Virtual Reality Assessment of Executive Functioning in Children and Adolescents with ADHD (2024) · cites this paper as [16]

  • Formal gait laboratory kinematic assessments are more accurate than other assessments but are expensive and their availability is limited to a small number of specialist centres.

    “Formal gait laboratory kinematic assessments are more accurate, but expensive, and availability is limited to a small number of specialist centres [88].”

    From Review of Wearable Devices and Data Collection Considerations for Connected Health (2021) · cites this paper as [88]

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 43 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Maenner, M. J., Smith, L. E., Hong, J., Makuch, R., Greenberg, J. S., & Mailick, M. R.
Affiliations
University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
Corresponding author
Maenner, Matthew J.
ORCID
Venue
Disability and Health Journal
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2013-01
Volume
6
Issue
1
Pages
8-17
ISSN
  • 1876-7583 (ISSN-L)
  • 1936-6574
DOI
10.1016/j.dhjo.2012.08.005
PMC
PMC3531884
OpenAlex
W2137821998
Cited by
198
References
43
Citations by year
2026: 16 · 2025: 16 · 2024: 22 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 16 · 2021: 25 · 2020: 17 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 16 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 13 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 1
FWCI
6.79
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
Locations
  • Disability and health journal (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institute on Aging (R01AG008768)
  • Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P30HD003110, P30HD003352)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Down syndrome and intellectual disability research
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Family and Disability Support Research
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
Keywords
activities of daily living, developmental disabilities, adolescents and adults, autism spectrum disorder, fragile X syndrome, Down syndrome, intellectual disability, measurement properties, reliability statistics, validity, floor and ceiling effects, respite care, caregiver burden, competitive employment, severity of intellectual disability
MeSH terms
Activities of Daily Living, Adolescent, Adult, Autistic Disorder, Child, Developmental Disabilities, Disability Evaluation, Down Syndrome, Employment, Female, Fragile X Syndrome, Persons with Disabilities, Humans, Male, Intellectual Disability, Middle Aged, Reproducibility of Results, Caregivers, Young Adult

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review