The evaluation of a screening tool for children with an intellectual disability: the Child and Adolescent Intellectual Disability Screening Questionnaire.
The CAIDS-Q is a five-minute parent form that spots kids who need full IQ testing with a large share accuracy.
01Research in Context
What this study did
McKenzie et al. (2012) tested a 14-item parent form called the CAIDS-Q.
Parents circle yes or no about daily skills like talking, dressing, and remembering.
The team checked answers against full IQ tests in the kids, half with known intellectual disability.
What they found
The short form caught 92 of every the kids who truly had low IQ.
It also ruled out 88 of every the kids with typical IQ.
Scores worked the same for younger (4-8) and older (9-16) age groups.
How this fits with other research
Nakai et al. (2011) did the same kind of check on a motor-coordination parent form.
Both studies show a quick checklist can stand in for long tests when you need a first flag.
Pichardo et al. (2026) add that parents can also track treatment gains with simple counts, so caregiver data is useful twice—first to screen, then to monitor.
Why it matters
You can hand the CAIDS-Q to any caregiver while they wait. It takes five minutes and gives you a clear red-yellow-green signal. If it flags red, move the child up for full IQ testing and start waiver paperwork sooner.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Print the CAIDS-Q, give it to the parent at intake, and use a score of 7 or lower to fast-track full assessment.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
The study outlines the evaluation of an intellectual disability screening tool, the Child and Adolescent Intellectual Disability Screening Questionnaire (CAIDS-Q), with two age groups. A number of aspects of the reliability and validity of the CAIDS-Q were assessed for these two groups, including inter-rater reliability, convergent and discriminative validity. For both age groups, a significant positive relationship was found between full scale IQ and CAIDS-Q score, indicating convergent validity. Significant differences were found in the CAIDS-Q scores between those with and without an intellectual disability, with the former group scoring significantly lower. The sensitivity and specificity of the CAIDS-Q were above 96.7% and 85.5% respectively for the younger group and 90.9% and 94.9% respectively for the older group. Limitations and implications of the study are discussed.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2012 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2012.01.015