SCQ

SCQ

Basic Characteristics

• Description

The Social Communication Questionnaire is a 40 item yes/no questionnaire that was developed to be a secondary screening tool for Autism. The SCQ is meant to be completed by the primary caregiver. However, recently interest has developed for studying the use of the SCQ as a primary screening tool. It is based on the ADI, a more thorough diagnostic tool. The SCQ is suggested for use in people above 4 years of age but specifically for those between the years of 4-5. The SCQ is not appropriate for people with a mental age younger than 2.

The SCQ questions deal with reciprocal social interactions, language and communication, repetitive and stereotyped behaviors. ¹

• History

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Scoring

The score ranges between 0-32 for people who cannot communicate using language and 0-39 for those who can. Anyone receiving a score of 15 or higher should be referred to a specialist to undergo diagnostic testing.

The cutoff score of 15 has been suggested to balance the tradeoff between specificity and sensitivity. ¹

Psychometrics (validity and reliability)

Studies with various populations have come up with differing sensitivities and specificities depending on the cutoff score. Hanson et. al. found a specificity of 0.41 and a sensitivity of 0.68 in a group of 42 children in an age range between 1.5-4.5 years.

Another study with 293 children where 230 had already been diagnosed with ASD showed that the SCQ had a specificity of 0.87 and a sensitivity of 0.62. Thus, the SCQ may be good at screening out non-autistic children but tends to have a fair amount of false negatives, particularly with children with higher IQ scores or mild symptoms. Lowering the cutoff score to 12 improves sensitivity but increases false positives.²

One study which studied the SCQ in a population of children with special needs with and without ASD, and also in a general population of children had a specificity of 0.72, a selectivity of 0.85, a positive predictive value of 0.64, and a negative predictive value of 0.91 with a cutoff score of 15. Both populations were school age. ³

The SCQ has been translated and validated with a German population sample, and has strong discriminating power between those with ASD and those without in a primary school age group of children. ⁴

References

1.Eaves et. al. Screening for autism spectrum disorders with the social communication questionnaire.J Dev Behav Pediatr. 2006 Apr;27(2 Suppl):S95-S103 PMID 16685191

2. Mulligan et. al. The Social Communication Questionnaire in a sample of the general population of school-going children.Ir J Med Sci. 2009 Jun;178(2):193-9 PMID 18651205

3. Chandler et. al. Validation of the Social Communication Questionnaire in a Population Cohort of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2007 Oct;46(10):1324-32. PMID 17885574

4. Bolte et. al. The Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ) as a screener for autism spectrum disorders: additional evidence and cross-cultural validity. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2008 Jun;47(6):719-20. PMID 18496329

Related Information

• Indicators (dependent variables, conditions, or contrasts; measurement variables used for analysis) associated with this task (vote or nominate by editing this page):

Related Pages

Other Screening Tools
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MCHAT
STAT
CAST
ASSQ

• Primary Species

humans

External Resources

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