Application of the Childhood Autism Rating Scale to Grasp Autistic Characteristics of the Trainees with Intellectual Disabilities in Agricultural Vocational Training

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to propose indicators for grasping autistic characteristics of people with intellectual disabilities who were going to engage in agricultural vocational training. We analyzed the data of the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) of 44 students at the high school course of a special needs education school who participated in agricultural vocational training. The data were divided into two groups according to the scores of “ General Impressions ”, one of 15 question items of the CARS: one was the group whose score was 1 (usual), and the other was the group whose scores were 1.5 to 4 (unusual). The results of the Mann-Whitney U test showed significant differences between two groups in eight items including “ Relating to People ” ( p < 0.05). The Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient revealed positive correlations of “ Relating to People ” with six other items. As a result, “ Relating to People ” was considered to be the most effective item to know the participant’s autistic characteristics at a very early stage of training. Eventually, adding two items, “ Body Use ” and “ Imitation ” which are necessary to master agricultural tasks, to “ Relating to People ”, we proposed three indicators.