Social skills in children with intellectual disabilities with and without autism.
Add the CSBQ to your assessment kit—it spots autism inside ID better than the Vineland alone.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team gave the Children’s Social Behaviour Questionnaire (CSBQ) to kids who had intellectual disability (ID) with and without autism.
They wanted to see if the CSBQ could spot autism better than plain social-skills tests like the Vineland.
What they found
The CSBQ clearly separated the kids with autism plus ID from the kids with ID alone.
It caught small social gaps that the Vineland missed.
How this fits with other research
Fenton et al. (2003) found Vineland profiles looked the same whether autism was present or not. That seems like a clash, but the two studies used different tools. Vineland asks about daily skills; CSBQ asks about subtle autism signs like odd eye contact or unusual greetings.
Žic Ralić et al. (2025) later showed parents rate social-emotional skills lowest when autism and ID occur together. Their result extends the 2005 work: once CSBQ helps you spot the dual diagnosis, you know which kids need the strongest social program.
Cohen et al. (1990) did something similar with the PSBC parent checklist for preschoolers. The CSBQ is the next generation—longer, finer items for school-age kids with ID.
Why it matters
If you test a child with ID and wonder about autism, add the CSBQ to your battery. It takes parents fifteen minutes and gives you autism-specific flags you won’t see on the Vineland. That sharper diagnosis guides you to focused social-skills teaching instead of generic ID services.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Social skills were studied in 363 children with mild intellectual disabilities (ID) and 147 with moderate ID with and without autism (age 4 through 18). The objective was to investigate the value of the Children's Social Behaviour Questionnaire (CSBQ), as a measure of subtle social skills, added to a measure of basic social skills with the Vineland Adaptive Behaviour Scales (VABS), in identifying children with ID with or without autism. METHOD: Children with mild and moderate ID, with and without autistic symptomatology were compared on basic social skills, measured with the Communication and Socialization domains of the VABS, and subtle social skills, measured with the CSBQ. RESULTS: Measuring basic social skills is not sufficient in differentiating between levels of ID. Communicative skills and subtle social skills, that concern overlooking activities or situations and fear of changes in the existing situation, seem to play a far greater role. Additionally, with respect to identifying autistic symptomatology, basic social skills do not contribute, as opposed to communicative skills and the tendency to withdraw from others. CONCLUSIONS: The results implicate that the CSBQ not only has specific value as a measure of subtle social skills to identify pervasive developmental disorders, but that the instrument also has a specific contribution to differentiating between the two levels of ID. Furthermore, our outcomes imply a slight difference between limitations in subtle social skills as mentioned by the AAMR (American Association on Mental Retardation 2002) and limitations in subtle social skills as seen in milder forms of pervasive developmental disorders. Clinical and theoretical implications will be discussed.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2005 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.2005.00655.x