Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) display language deficits, making it difficult to assess linguistic knowledge using standardized assessments. Parent report measures, such as vocabulary checklists, are commonly used across settings. While current parent measures do not capture data regarding parents’ certainty about their judgments, this insight may be informative. The current study examined the use of a custom parent vocabulary checklist to assess parent certainty of their responses regarding their child’s vocabulary knowledge. The participants were children with ASD and typically developing children (TD) of similar ages. In addition to answering whether their child says and understands a word, understands, or neither, parents were also asked to rate the certainty of their judgment about each word, with response choices ranging from Very Uncertain to Very Certain. Parents of TD children reported higher levels of certainty than parents of children with ASD. Within the ASD group, certainty ratings were higher for words classified as “Understands and Says” than for words classified as “Understands” or “Neither”. Certainty ratings varied substantially across children with ASD.
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