Assessment of Autistic Traits in Children Aged 2 to 4½ Years With the Preschool Version of the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS-P): Findings from Japan.
Andrew Stickley, Yoshiyuki Tachibana, Keiji Hashimoto and 10 others
PMID 28256099WHAT IT FOUND
Mother ratings did not separate autism from other clinical problems well, but the SRS-P gave stable parent and teacher ratings of autistic traits in Japanese preschoolers.
Use it as a trait measure, not a diagnosis.
Key findings
01Mother and teacher mean SRS-P scores did not differ significantly in the community or clinical samples.
02A mother-rated SRS-P score of 48.5 had sensitivity 0.825 and specificity 0.823 when used to identify ASD against community children.
03Teacher ratings distinguished ASD from non-ASD clinical children with an AUC of 0.841, while mother ratings had an AUC of 0.681.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The clinical group was small, so some estimates were imprecise. Boys and girls were not examined separately because the clinical sample was small. The non-ASD clinical group included children with known genetic neurological disorders and children with idiopathic behavioral or developmental disorders. Sociodemographic information was not collected except gender and age, and IQ/DQ or behavioral information was missing for many children with severe or profound intellectual disability. Community children had no autism-related gold standard assessment, so it is unknown whether low and high scores reflected true differences in autistic traits. All families of children with ASD knew the diagnosis when they completed the rating. Mother and teacher agreement was modest in community children, so the two raters may not be measuring the same behavior. The scale's diagnostic validity was not established in this study.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat the SRS-P as a diagnostic test for autism. It is a rating of autistic traits by parents or teachers, not a clinical assessment. Mother ratings did not separate children with ASD from children with other clinical diagnoses well, and the study did not test families who were unaware of a diagnosis.