Reliability and validity of parent- and child-rated anxiety measures in autism spectrum disorder.

Researchers checked if two common anxiety scales work for kids with autism. They gave the RCADS and MASC-2 to parents and to the kids themselves.

The team looked at how well the scores hang together and whether parent and child answers match.

Both scales were reliable and valid for youth with ASD. The bad news: parents and kids rarely agreed on the anxiety level.

Agreement got worse when the child had lower IQ or more severe autism traits.

Bearss et al. (2016) took the next step. They ran parent focus groups and built 52 new items that speak autism-specific language. Their work is the sequel you will want to watch.

Shawler et al. (2021) asked the same question in adults. They found that self-report social-anxiety scales work fine for verbally fluent autistic adults. The message: once language is solid, grown-ups can rate themselves.

Bakhtiari et al. (2021) echo the IQ warning. They showed that youth with ASD can complete self-report forms, but validity dips when IQ drops below 80 or attention problems are high.

Use RCADS or MASC-2 with confidence, but always collect both parent and child forms. Treat disagreement as data, not error. If scores clash, look at IQ and autism severity before deciding which report to weight. For kids under 80 IQ or with attention trouble, lean on parent and teacher data until Karen et al. release their autism-tuned scale.