A cross-cultural study of autistic traits across India, Japan and the UK.

The autism groups were selected from support organisations, special schools and a volunteer database, not from population surveys, so they may not represent all children with autism. The India and Japan samples were much smaller than the UK sample, and the Indian sample was urban only, so results may not apply to rural or community presentations. No data were available on ethnicity, specific IQ or socio-economic status, which could influence parent responses. Diagnostic procedures and recruitment methods varied across countries and studies, and controls were not compared with children with other neurodevelopmental disorders. Parent reports were collected after diagnosis, so parents' awareness of autism may have increased endorsement of autistic traits. Some apparent cultural differences may reflect translation or wording problems rather than true differences in behaviour. The five universal items were not tested as a standalone screening tool, and the authors do not recommend replacing current screening tools with these items.

Do not treat the five universal items or the country-specific short versions as ready-to-use diagnostic tools. The authors state that evaluating these items as a brief screener was beyond the scope of this paper and that they do not recommend using these items in place of current screening tools.