Factor structure and psychometric properties of the revised Home Situations Questionnaire for autism spectrum disorder: The Home Situations Questionnaire-Autism Spectrum Disorder.
The 24-item HSQ-ASD gives two reliable scores that track everyday non-compliance in autistic children.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Chowdhury et al. (2016) trimmed the old Home Situations Questionnaire down to 24 items.
They asked parents of autistic children to rate how tough each home setting is.
Stats showed two clear piles of items: Socially Inflexible and Demand Specific.
What they found
The short form held together well.
Both subscales were reliable and mapped onto real parent reports of non-compliance.
How this fits with other research
Tde Wit et al. (2024) did the same math job on the 25-item Autism Symptom Dimensions Questionnaire.
Both teams found tight factor structures, giving you two quick parent scales that work.
Magiati et al. (2017) and Jitlina et al. (2017) tried the same trick with the SCAS-P anxiety scale.
Their factors fell apart, so they warn you to use only parts of that tool.
The HSQ-ASD success shows the problem was the SCAS-P items, not parent reports in general.
Why it matters
You now have a 24-item checklist that takes five minutes and splits non-compliance into social rigidity versus demand-based refusal.
Use it at intake, re-score after treatment, and show parents exactly which bucket is shrinking.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Previously, we adapted the Home Situations Questionnaire to measure behavioral non-compliance in everyday settings in children with pervasive developmental disorders. In this study, we further revised this instrument for use in autism spectrum disorder and examined its psychometric properties (referred to as the Home Situations Questionnaire-Autism Spectrum Disorder). To cover a broader range of situations and improve reliability, we prepared seven new items describing situations in which children with autism spectrum disorder might display non-compliance. Parents completed ratings of 242 children with autism spectrum disorder with accompanying disruptive behaviors (ages 4-14 years) participating in one of two randomized clinical trials. Results from an exploratory factor analysis indicated that the Home Situations Questionnaire-Autism Spectrum Disorder consists of two 12-item factors: Socially Inflexible (α = 0.84) and Demand Specific (α = 0.89). One-to-two-week test-retest reliability was statistically significant for all scored items and also for subscale totals. The pattern of correspondence between the Home Situations Questionnaire-Autism Spectrum Disorder and parent-rated problem behavior, clinician-rated repetitive behavior, adaptive behavior, and IQ provided evidence for concurrent and divergent validity of the Home Situations Questionnaire-Autism Spectrum Disorder. Overall, the results suggest that the Home Situations Questionnaire-Autism Spectrum Disorder is an adequate measure for assessing non-compliance in a variety of situations in this population, and use of its two subscales will likely provide a more refined interpretation of ratings.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2016 · doi:10.1177/1362361315593941