Abstract
There is a need for brief screening instruments for autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) that can be used by frontline healthcare professionals to aid in the decision as to whether an individual should be referred for a full diagnostic assessment. In this study we evaluated the ability of a short form of the autism spectrum quotient (AQ) questionnaire, the 10 item AQ-10, to correctly classify individuals as having or not having ASD. In a sample of 149 individuals with ASD and 134 controls without an ASD diagnosis, we found that the full AQ (AQ-50) abridged AQ (AQ-S) and AQ-10 all performed well as a screen for ASD. ROC analysis indicated that sensitivity, specificity and area under the curve were very similar at suggested cut-off’s for ASD across measures, with little difference in performance between the AQ-10 and full AQ-50. Results indicate the potential usefulness of the AQ-10 as a brief screen for ASD.
References
Allison, C., Auyeung, B., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2012). Toward brief “red flags” for autism screening: The short autism spectrum quotient and the short quantitative checklist in 1,000 cases and 3,000 controls. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 51(202–212), e7.
American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-IV-TR (4th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.
Baron-Cohen, S., Wheelwright, S., Robinson, J., & Woodbury-Smith, M. (2005). The adult Asperger assessment (AAA): A diagnostic method. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 35, 807–819.
Baron-Cohen, S., Wheelwright, S., Skinner, R., Martin, J., & Clubley, E. (2001). The autism-spectrum quotient (AQ): Evidence from Asperger syndrome/high-functioning autism, males and females, scientists and mathematicians. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 31, 5–17.
Blacher, J., Kraemer, B., & Schalow, M. (2003). Asperger syndrome and high functioning autism: Research concerns and emerging foci. Current Opinion in Psychiatry, 16(5). Available at: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/460482.
Burnett, H. G., & Jellema, T. (2012). (Re-) conceptualisation in Asperger’s syndrome and typical individuals with varying degrees of autistic-like traits. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 43, 211–223.
Hoekstra, R. A., Vinkhuyzen, A. A., Wheelwright, S., Bartels, M., Boomsma, D. I., Baron-Cohen, S., et al. (2011). The construction and validation of an abridged version of the autism-spectrum quotient (AQ-short). Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 41, 589–596.
Kuenssberg, R., Murray, A. L., Booth, T., & McKenzie, K. (2012). Structural validation of the abridged autism spectrum quotient-short form in a clinical sample of people with autism spectrum disorders. Autism,. doi:10.1177/1362361312467708.
Mandy, W., Chilvers, R., Chowdhury, U., Salter, G., Seigal, A., & Skuse, D. (2012). Sex differences in autism spectrum disorder: Evidence from a large sample of children and adolescents. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 42, 1304–1313.
Matson, J. L., & Shoemaker, M. (2009). Intellectual disability and its relationship to autism spectrum disorders. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 30, 1107–1114.
National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). (2012). Autism: Recognition, referral, diagnosis and management of adults on the autism spectrum [CG23]. London: NICE.
Robin, X., Turck, N., Hainard, A., Tiberti, N., Lisacek, F., Sanchez, J.-C., et al. (2011). pROC: An open-source package for R and S+ to analyze and compare ROC curves. BMC Bioinformatics, 12, 77. doi:10.1186/1471-2105-12-77.
Wheelwright, S., Auyeung, B., Allison, C., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2010). Research defining the broader, medium and narrow autism phenotype among parents using the autism spectrum quotient (AQ). Molecular Autism, 1, 10.
Wicherts, J. M., & Dolan, C. V. (2010). Measurement invariance in confirmatory factor analysis: An illustration using IQ test performance of minorities. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 29, 39–47.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Booth, T., Murray, A.L., McKenzie, K. et al. Brief Report: An Evaluation of the AQ-10 as a Brief Screening Instrument for ASD in Adults. J Autism Dev Disord 43, 2997–3000 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-013-1844-5
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-013-1844-5