SPCE 680: Introduction to Persons with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Peer-reviewed Article Analysis 2 requires you to find an article which meets specific criteria:

• It must include discussion of one of the acceptable screening or diagnostic tools (see your assignment).
• It must focus on differential diagnosis.
• You must find the article using either APA PsycInfo or MEDLINE, both of which are library databases available through the Ball State Libraries, and which are linked below.
• It must be a peer-reviewed article.
• The article must be published in a journal that is not predatory.  Note that APA PsycInfo and MEDLINE do not include predatory journals, so that makes your process easier.
• It must be a research-based article in one of these study formats:
  • Group research design
  • Single-case research design
• Qualitative research designs and review articles are NOT acceptable.
• You have to show with a screenshot that you got it through the Ball State Libraries.

Either APA PsycInfo or MEDLINE are acceptable databases to use for this assignment.

Here is a sample of how you could enter your search terms:

If the screening or diagnostic tool you chose is known by an abbreviation, include both the abbreviation and the full name in your search with the word OR in between.  This tells the database to search for either of those terms and broadens your search results.  For example:

On the results page in APA PsycInfo and MEDLINE, a couple simple limiters under the search bar enable you to narrow your results to peer-reviewed academic journal articles, as shown here:

To make sure you choose a research-based article that fits the requirements of Peer-reviewed Article Analysis 2, you'll need to read the abstract of the article carefully.

• Research-based articles will include participants, so seeing numbers of people listed in the abstract can be a good sign.
• Research-based articles quite often are broken up into a standardized set of sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion/Conclusion.  These are signs you're looking at a research article.

Your assignment specifies that these study format are acceptable, so obviously these terms are a good sign, too:

• Group study design
• Single case study design
  • However, know that there are many kinds of single case study designs, including reversal design, withdrawal design, ABAB design, and multiple baseline design.  An abstract which describes a study with any of those terms does in fact use single case study design.

Clues that you are NOT looking at a research-based article:

• The title or abstract states that the article is a review of some kind, such as a meta-analysis, a systematic review, or a literature review.

While qualitative studies are often research-based, they are not acceptable for this assignment.

• Avoid an article if the title or abstract states that it's a qualitative study.

There are several ways in APA PsycInfo and MEDLINE that you may be able to show that you're getting access through Ball State.

If you have LibKey Nomad downloaded to your browser, then when you view the article you may see this icon:

Or you may be brought to a page like this:

Or you may have to take a screenshot showing "Ball State University" in the upper left-hand corner of the database, as shown here:

For helping finding the full text of an article you're interested in, look for an "Access" button.

For more information, visit the Find the Full Text page.