Health-related quality of life for children with ASD: Associations with behavioral characteristics

• Behavioral characteristics are associated with HRQoL in a population of children with ASD.
• Internalizing and externalizing behaviors are related to some aspects of HRQoL.
• Aberrant behaviors are related to several HRQoL domains.

This paper examines health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of children age 6–11 years with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) using the Child Health and Illness Profile – Child Edition (CHIP–CE). We further examine associations of HRQoL scores with measures of behavior using regression models. Overall HRQoL scores are lower than those for normative samples. We find that both externalizing and internalizing behaviors (measured with the Child Behavior Checklist) are correlated with HRQoL as are several of the subscales of the aberrant behavior checklist. These results suggest that some potentially modifiable aspects of ASD, in particular ASD-related and aberrant behaviors, are associated with HRQoL. These associations are suggestive of the potential for improvements in behaviors in some domains having the potential to improve HRQoL. Future studies should determine whether improvements in behaviors are associated with improvements in HRQoL.