The Dutch Sensory Perception Quotient-Short in adults with and without autism.
Ricarda F Weiland, Tinca Jc Polderman, Rosa A Hoekstra and 2 others
PMID 32720830WHAT IT FOUND
Adults with autism reported higher sensory sensitivity than neurotypical adults.
Women with autism reported higher sensitivity than men with autism, a gender difference not seen in the control group. The Dutch SPQ-Short reliably measures these self-reported sensory experiences.
Key findings
01Adults with ASD scored lower on the SPQ-Short (indicating higher sensitivity) than the comparison group, with a small effect size.
02Females with ASD reported higher sensory sensitivity than males with ASD, while no significant gender effect was found in the comparison group.
03The Dutch SPQ-Short showed high reliability with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.93.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample consisted only of adults capable of completing online questionnaires, meaning adults with lower cognitive abilities or intellectual disabilities were under-represented. The study relied entirely on self-report, so it does not confirm whether these reported sensitivities match objective psychophysical measures. The SPQ-Short is heavily weighted toward measuring hypersensitivity (30 items) compared to hyposensitivity (5 items), potentially missing hypo-sensory experiences.
Declared interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest and received no financial support for the research.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume the SPQ-Short captures all types of sensory processing differences. The tool primarily measures hypersensitivity, and the study did not investigate concurrent validity with objective behavioral tests.