The Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ) as a screener for autism spectrum disorders: additional evidence and cross-cultural validity.

摘要

In the October 2007 issue of the Journal, Chandler et al.1 present convincing findings on the utility of the Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ) as a screen for autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) in high-risk samples of school-age children. Among other findings, this UK study found a sensitivity of 0.88 and specificity of 0.72 for the discrimination between ASD and non-ASD cases and a sensitivity of 0.90 and specificity of 0.86 for the discrimination between autism and nonautism cases. The SCQ is a parent report questionnaire containing 40 binary scaled items that has previously demonstrated good diagnostic validity in the initial standardization study. We would like to contribute to the ongoing evaluation of the SCQ in international child and adolescent psychiatry by briefly communicating some psychometric properties of the German version of the instrument.