Psychometric Properties of the Autism Spectrum Quotient: Children's Version (AQ-Child).
The AQ-Child works best with four factors when you screen clinic-referred kids who have ADHD.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Rapson and colleagues looked at the Autism Spectrum Quotient-Child form.
They wanted to know if the old five-factor model still fits.
The team ran new stats on clinic-referred kids with ADHD.
What they found
The numbers lined up better with four factors, not five.
The shorter model held together well in this ADHD group.
How this fits with other research
Lundin et al. (2019) did the same kind of trim-down.
They shrank the adult AQ-10 and also found a cleaner, shorter scale.
Jia et al. (2019) went further and cut the adult AQ to just nine items.
All three 2019 papers point to the same take-away: fewer items and factors can still give solid scores.
Allen et al. (2016) looked at the SRS-2 teacher form and also landed on four factors.
Together these studies show the four-factor pattern pops up across tools, ages, and raters.
Why it matters
If you give the AQ-Child to children with ADHD, use the four-factor version.
It saves time and the scores are trustworthy.
You can still compare results with past studies, just drop the extra factor.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and exploratory and factor analysis (EFA) aimed to determine the optimum Autism Spectrum Quotient-Children (AQ-Child) model. Initial CFA of parent ratings of the AQ-Child for 404 clinic-referred children with ADHD, aged between 4 and 11 years, revealed mixed/moderate support for the implied AQ-Child five-factor model and the past statistically supported four-factor model (Auyeung et al., J Autism Dev Disord 38:1230-1240, 2008). Interestingly, EFA findings indicated most support for a four-factor model, with factors reflecting "mind-reading", "social skills", "attention to details", and "imagination". The items loading in these factors were different from those proposed originally for similar factors (Auyeung et al., J Autism Dev Disord 38:1230-1240, 2008). The factors in the model showed acceptable internal consistency-reliability and discriminant validity. Clinical and research implications are discussed.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2019 · doi:10.1007/s10803-018-3713-8