Validação da Escala de Desenvolvimento Musical de Crianças com Autismo (DEMUCA): análise semântica, interexaminadores, consistência interna e confiabilidade externa

Abstract

Autism is a condition of childhood neurodevelopment characterized by challenges in reciprocal social communication and restrictive and repetitive behavior patterns. Special Music Education and Music Therapy are two important forms of intervention for children with autism, and therefore it is important to pursue appropriate measurement tools to assess the child’s musical development. The main objective of this study is to analyze the validity evidence of the Musical Development of Children with Autism Scale (MUDECA Scale), through four validation analyses: semantic, inter-rater, internal consistency, and external consistency analyses. The blind application of the scale was done by judges who evaluated ten pre-filmed videos of the first and last Music Therapy sessions of children with autism. The semantic analysis showed the importance of clarifying the concept of some items and indicated no need for other items. The inter-rater analysis indicated optimal correlations among all judges for all videos. The internal consistency analysis indicated an optimal correlation between items and the appropriate number of items in the scale. Finally, the external consistency analysis showed satisfactory correlations between most similar categories of the MUDECA Scale and the Individualized Music Therapy Assessment Profiles (IMTAP), with indications for future studies. We conclude that the results provide best evidence for the use of MUDECA Scale in Brazil for assessing the musical development of children with autism.