Performance of the Social Responsiveness Scale-2 for the Assessment of Autistic Behaviors in a Sample of Canadian Preschool-Aged Children.
Adele Carty, Rivka Green, Carly V Goodman and 5 others
PMID 39102070WHAT IT FOUND
Canadian preschoolers scored significantly lower on the SRS-2 than the US children used to set its norms.
Because the Canadian sample was more educated and White, using US norms may underestimate autism traits in Canadian children, leading to missed diagnoses.
Key findings
01Canadian children had significantly lower SRS-2 total raw scores than the US standardization sample, with a medium effect size.
02The Canadian sample had a significantly larger proportion of White children and more educated parents than the US standardization sample.
03Boys in the Canadian sample had significantly higher SRS-2 T-scores than girls, a sex difference not seen in the US standardization sample.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The Canadian sample was not representative of the general population; it was overwhelmingly White (89.8%) and highly educated (95.1%), which may explain the lower scores. The study did not have gold-standard ASD diagnostic data (like ADOS) to confirm if the children with high SRS-2 scores actually had autism. Item-level data were unavailable, so the researchers could not check if the test's internal structure was the same in both groups. The comparison is between two different samples from different countries and time periods, so differences may reflect cultural or systemic factors rather than just true trait severity.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume the SRS-2 is equally accurate for all Canadian children. The lower scores in this specific, highly educated and White sample may not apply to more diverse populations. Using US norms could lead to missing autism in children who do not fit this demographic profile.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →