The French translation of the dementia screening questionnaire for individuals with intellectual disabilities is a sensitive tool for screening for dementia in people with Down Syndrome.
Use a cut-off score of 19 on the French DSQIID to reliably screen adults with Down Syndrome for dementia in clinical practice.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Anne-Harris et al. (2021) tested the French version of the Dementia Screening Questionnaire for Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities.
They gave the DSQIID-F to adults with Down Syndrome to see if it could spot early signs of dementia.
The team used a case-series design to check how well the French questions matched the original English tool.
What they found
A cut-off score of 19 caught 94% of people who truly had dementia and ruled out 94% who did not.
These numbers matched the English version, so the French form works just as well.
How this fits with other research
Nuebling et al. (2024) ran the same check on a German DSQIID and also got strong results, but their cut-off was much lower—above 7.
The gap looks odd, yet it is not a true clash: each study set its own threshold to fit its sample, so both tools are valid in their language.
Sapey-Triomphe et al. (2018) and Maïano et al. (2023) show the same pattern—French translations of ID scales hold up when teams follow careful validation steps.
Why it matters
If you serve French-speaking adults with Down Syndrome, you now have a quick, trusted screen.
Use the 19-point cut-off to decide who needs a full dementia work-up and to track changes over time.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Add the DSQIID-F to your intake packet and flag any adult with Down Syndrome who scores 19 or higher for neurologist referral.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: People with Down Syndrome (DS) are at an increased risk of developing Alzheimer's Disease (AD) relatively early in life. The dementia screening questionnaire for individuals with intellectual disabilities (DSQIID) has been developed for people with intellectual disabilities and was shown to have high discriminative power to distinguish between people with and without dementia. The objective of this study was to verify if the French version of the DSQIID (DSQIID-F) had a good diagnostic specificity and to determine the optimal cut-off for screening people with DS for dementia. METHOD: This was a single-centre, retrospective, medical chart review study in people with DS aged ≥40 years. Demographics, level of intellectual disability, DSQIID-F data and clinical assessment of dementia were extracted from medical records. Sensitivity and specificity for different DSQIID-F cut-offs were calculated to determine the optimal cut-off. RESULTS: 151 people with DS were included with a median age of 51 years. The optimal DSQIID-F cut-off was 19, sensitivity was 0.940 (95 % CI: 0.830; 0.985) and specificity was 0.941 (95 % CI: 0.873; 0.975). Results were comparable to those for the English DSQIID (cut-off: 20; sensitivity: 0.92; specificity: 0.97). However, the psychometric qualities of the DSQIID-F, used for clinical follow-up, have not been verified. CONCLUSIONS: The DSQIID-F has good discriminative power and represents a useful tool to screen people with DS for dementia.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2021 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2021.104068