Screening for autism in Mexico.
The Spanish SRS cleanly separates school-age Mexican children with autism from peers, so you can use it for first-step district screening.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Fombonne et al. (2012) tested the Spanish Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) in Mexico. They wanted to know if the paper form could tell school-age kids with autism from neurotypical classmates.
Parents filled out the 65-item questionnaire. The team checked how well scores lined up with clinical diagnosis.
What they found
The Spanish SRS almost perfectly separated the two groups. The area-under-curve value was above 0.96, a strongly positive result.
Internal consistency was also high. The tool looked ready for large-scale screening in Mexican schools.
How this fits with other research
Che Daud et al. (2026) later showed that picking the right tool changes prevalence numbers. Their 2026 review lists SRS as a top screener, placing the Mexican study inside the global picture.
Warren et al. (2012) sounds a warning: the same SRS plus SCQ often mis-classifies kids with other neuro-behavioral profiles. Their mixed finding seems to clash with the strong Mexican data, but the difference is purpose. Eric et al. aimed for broad epidemiological screening, while Zachary needed clean genetic phenotyping. For clinic research you still need follow-up tests.
Root et al. (2017) meta-analysis found the SCQ acceptable yet weaker under age 4. None of these papers cancel each other; together they say: choose SRS for school screening, SCQ Lifetime for older kids, and always confirm positives clinically.
Why it matters
If you work in bilingual assessment or plan district-wide screening, you can trust the Spanish SRS to flag probable autism in Mexican school children. Pair it with a second-step tool and clinical visit to catch the kids who need full evaluation and services.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
In order to conduct the screening phase of the first epidemiological survey of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) in Mexico, we needed a screening tool to detect autistic symptomatology in a large sample of school-age children. We used the Spanish version of the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS). We recruited a clinical sample of 200 children (81% males; mean age: 7.4 years) with a confirmed diagnosis of ASDs and a sample of 363 control children (59.5% males; mean age: 8.5 years) without ASDs. Three-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs) identified a main effect of clinical status (ASDs vs. controls) for both parent and teacher scales, but no gender or age effect. The mean total and subscale raw scores were significantly different between the clinical and control groups for the parent and for the teacher SRS (P < 0.001). The internal consistency of the SRS was excellent. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses showed excellent discriminant validity of the SRS in the Mexican sample (area under the curve: 0.962 for the parent, 0.960 for the teacher). ROC curves were also used to determine which cutoff would provide the best trade-off between sensitivity and specificity. Mexican SRS scores were significantly higher than in the U.S. and German population for typically developing children but comparable for clinically referred subjects. The SRS is an acceptable screening instrument for epidemiological studies of ASDs in Mexico. Its psychometric properties are excellent and comparable to those derived from North American and other samples.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2012 · doi:10.1002/aur.1235