3.3. Comparison of Parental and Trained Professional Ratings of Children’s ASD Symptoms or Feature Development
REGRESSION
We attempted to compare concordance and assess the eventual interchangeability of parents’ ratings of therapeutic efficacy in their children and the assessment of therapeutic efficacy performed by a trained professional. The parents’ impression scale was classified as follows: −1, the child worsened; 0, no noticeable change; and 1, the child improved somewhat [Clinical psychologists evaluated the regression of behavioural symptoms in probands at the end of the study. Approximately 80% of the children in both groups did not show clinical improvement. In contrast, no children in the placebo group were classified as having no further improvement based on their parents’ impression scale ratings, whereas only one child within the SFN group was assessed as having no further improvement by their parent. We compared the two assessment techniques using the Bland–Altman plot and statistics. The line of equality is not within either the 95% CI of the mean difference or the 95% CI of the regression curve, and the bias indicates a lack of agreement between the two methods of assessment. The parents’ ratings of therapeutic efficacy and the clinical assessments of child regression indicated a significant systematic difference (H