Subclassification of children with autism and pervasive developmental disorder: a questionnaire based on Wing's subgrouping scheme.

The team built a short parent form called the Wing Subgroups Questionnaire. It sorts kids with autism into one of three groups: aloof, passive, or active-but-odd.

Parents answer yes-or-no questions about how their child talks, plays, and reacts to others. The study checked if the form gives the same result as expert ratings.

The questionnaire matched expert ratings most of the time. Internal consistency was good, meaning items hung together.

The tool was judged “adequate” for clinic use. It let parents place their child into Wing’s three social subtypes in minutes.

Lancioni et al. (2000) later created the CSBQ for milder PDD. Like the WSQ, it showed solid psychometrics, giving a conceptual thumbs-up to parent-report subtyping.

Bitsika et al. (2018) used cluster analysis and found only high- and low-severity groups, not three distinct types. This seems to clash with the WSQ, but Vicki looked at symptom counts across the whole spectrum, while the WSQ captures social style; both can be true.

Sparaci et al. (2015) and Rivard et al. (2026) extended the idea by letting data decide clusters in toddlers and preschoolers. They still found three groups, showing Wing’s approach holds when age and method change.

You can give the one-page WSQ during intake and instantly see which social style best fits the child. This quick sort guides first-session goals: aloof kids may need stronger pairing, active-but-odd kids may need scripted peer entry. Use it alongside severity tools to cover both style and intensity without extra testing time.