Assessing the Validity of the Social Communication Questionnaire in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Intellectual Disability
Year: 2010
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Assessing autism spectrum disorders in adults is a challenging task, as ASD symptoms change over time and early developmental history may be unavailable for many adults.This study assessed the diagnostic validity of the Current version of the Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ), an autism rating scale, in a sample of adults with intellectual disability (ID).Participants included 52 individuals, aged 19 to 40 years (mean age = 28.6 years, SD = 6.0), who were recruited from agencies serving individuals with ID, a large university center for intellectual and developmental disabilities, and the Autism Society of Ohio.Parents and/or support staff completed the SCQ Current and SCQ Lifetime (when applicable) versions and measures of participants' behavior and adaptive functioning.The SCQ Current version, as rated by support staff, yielded a sensitivity of .60 and a specificity of .81 at the cutoff score of 15 proposed by the authors.However, the optimal cutoff score in this sample was 12, which yielded a sensitivity of .80 and specificity of .65.Analyses were repeated in a subset of participants in the IDonly group with high and low level of behavioral problems, and comparable sensitivity and specificity values were found.Behavior problems did not appear to affect the discriminative validity of the SCQ Current in this sample.Although the SCQ Current version was not specifically designed to screen for ASDs in adults, it may be a useful tool for screening individuals whose early developmental history is unavailable.A lower
Author: Whitney T. Brooks
Institution: The Ohio State University
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W984737773