Study of Paliperidone ER in Adolescents and Young Adults With Autism

The CGI Global Improvement (CGI-I) is a clinician-rate scale designed to take into account all factors to arrive at an assessment of severity and response to treatment, including parent report, parent-rated measures, teacher-rated measures, and clinician-rated measures. The CGI-I is rated from 1 to 7 (1 = very much improved; 2 = much improved; 3 = minimally improved; 4 = no change; 5 = minimally worse; 6 = much worse; 7 = very much worse) at a single time-point.

The Aberrant Behavior Checklist (ABC) is a 58-item measure of maladaptive behaviors and is used as a measure of drug effects. Each item is rated from 0 (not at all to 3 (severe). The ABC has 5 subscales:Irritability (15 items) ranging from 0 (not at all) to 45 (severe), Hyperactivity (16 items) ranging from 0 (not at all) to 48 (severe), Social Withdrawal (16 items) ranging from 0 (not at all) to 48 (severe), Stereotypy (7 items) ranging from 0 (not at all) to 21 (severe) and Inappropriate Speech (4 items) ranging from 0 (not at all) to 12 (severe).

The Children's Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale Modified for Pervasive Developmental Disorders (CY-BOCS-PDD) is semi-structured clinician rating scale designed to rate the current severity of repetitive behavior in children and adolescents with PDD. The scale consists of 5 items: Time Spent, Interference, Distress, Resistance and Control. Each item is scored from 0 (None) to 4 (Extreme). The scale yields a Total Score from 0 (least symptomatic) to 20 (most symptomatic). Higher scores indicate greater severity of repetitive behavior.

The Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) is a 65-item parent completed scale that assesses social awareness, social cognition, social communication, social motivation and autistic mannerisms. Each item is scored from 1 (not true) to 3 (almost always true). Interpretation in this study is based on a total score that is proportional to the level of impairment in reciprocal social behavior. Scores within 0-53 are within normal limits. Scores within 54-86 indicate mild to moderate impairment. Scores above 87 indicate severe impairment.

The VABS Maladaptive Behavior Domain measures undesirable behaviors that may interfere with an individual's adaptive functioning. The Maladaptive Domain consists two parts. Part I contains 27 minor maladaptive items and Part II contains 9 serious maladaptive behaviors. Each item is scored from 0 (never or seldom engages in the activity) to 2(usually or habitually engages in the activity). Part 1 yields a score of 0 to 54. Part II yields a score of 0 to 18. Both parts are combined to make a Total Score of 0 to 72. High scores of maladaptive behaviors reflect more negative behavior.