Measuring self and informant perspectives of Restricted and Repetitive Behaviours (RRBs): psychometric evaluation of the Repetitive Behaviours Questionnaire-3 (RBQ-3) in adult clinical practice and research settgs.
Catherine R G Jones, Lucy A Livingston, Christine Fretwell and 4 others
PMID 38845057WHAT IT FOUND
Adults waiting for autism assessment and their informants agreed on repetitive behaviours, and both lined up with clinician interview ratings.
Autistic adults scored higher than non-autistic adults. Use the questionnaire to guide assessment, not to diagnose alone.
Key findings
01Self-report and informant-report RBQ-3 scores agreed well among adults referred for autism assessment.
02RBQ-3 self-report scores aligned with clinician interview ratings of restricted and repetitive behaviours, including in the phase where clinicians were blind to the questionnaire.
03Autistic adults in an online sample scored higher on the RBQ-3 than non-autistic adults.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study tested only adults who could self-report, so it does not show how the questionnaire works for children or people with intellectual disability. Study 1 came from one specialist service in Wales, and very few participants had a non-autistic diagnostic decision, so it may not reflect other adult services. Ethnicity was not routinely collected in the first phase, and the second phase was mostly White British. Study 2 relied on participants reporting a confirmed autism diagnosis, but the diagnosis was not independently verified. Clinicians saw the RBQ-3 scores in Phase 2 but not in Phase 1, and correlations with interview ratings were stronger when clinicians had seen them. No factor analysis was done, and the repetitive motor and sensory behaviours subscale had only marginal reliability in Study 2. Autistic community involvement in the research was limited.
Declared interests
Funding was provided by the Waterloo Foundation and the Leverhulme Trust.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the RBQ-3 as a stand-alone diagnostic test. The paper says a person’s RRB profile is not sufficient for categorising them as autistic, and cut-off criteria are not appropriate for that purpose.