In a new study, researchers found that a common test used by doctors and researchers to measure autistic personality traits lacks reliability and might not be capturing the right signs of autism.
This means that research including scores from this test may lack validity and raises new questions about its use for screening for autism in the general population.
The research was conducted by psychologists at the University of Bath, King’s College London, and Cardiff University.
The 10-item Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ10) questionnaire asks people to report if they have personality characteristics associated with autism.
There are many forms of these types of questionnaires, with the AQ10 being the shortest and most commonly used by GPs.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the government body responsible for making recommendations for clinical practice and to the NHS, recommends the AQ10 as a screening tool for autism in adults.
For research purposes, results from the questionnaire are used in large-scale studies to measure autistic traits in the general population.
These autistic traits/tendencies are then linked to their performance on other tasks, in order to inform how autism may be related to other social behaviors and difficulties.
In a new study, the researchers used data from over 6,500 participants from the general population to examine the effectiveness of AQ10 in measuring autism.
They found that the measure had poor reliability across several statistical techniques and the team now suggests the reliance on AQ10 as a measure of autistic traits needs to be questioned.
The findings add further evidence that the measures of autism and autistic traits currently used in research are inadequate.
They suggest scientists need new systems in place designed to better capture the range of autistic personality traits across the population.
One author of the study is Dr. Punit Shah, an expert on cognitive processing at the University of Bath.
The study is published in Experimental Results.
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