Validation of the social communication questionnaire amongst Nigerian adolescents.
Set the SCQ cut-off at 10 for Nigerian teens to catch 8 out of 10 ASD cases without extra false alarms.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Nwokolo et al. (2024) tested the Social Communication Questionnaire on 205 Nigerian teens.
They compared SCQ scores to the gold-standard ADOS-2 to see if the tool catches autism in this age group.
The goal was to find the best cut-off number for African adolescents.
What they found
A score of 10 on the SCQ caught 81% of teens who later met ADOS-2 criteria for ASD.
It also correctly ruled out 88% of teens who did not have ASD.
These numbers are strong enough for routine screening in Nigerian schools and clinics.
How this fits with other research
Liu et al. (2022) also found the SCQ works well, but their Chinese sample of 2- to 12-year-olds needed slightly higher cut-offs (11 or 12).
The lower cut-off in Nigeria makes sense because teens may show subtler social-communication differences than younger kids.
Schanding et al. (2012) showed that lowering the SCQ cut-off helps when teachers fill it out in U.S. classrooms; Uchechukwu et al. now show the same principle applies when parents complete it for African teens.
Why it matters
If you screen adolescents in Africa or in the diaspora, use an SCQ cut-off of 10, not the Western 15.
This single change reduces missed cases and saves you time before a full ADOS-2.
Add the teen’s age and culture to your interpretation notes and you have a quick, valid first step toward diagnosis.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Few autism spectrum disorder (ASD) screening tools have been developed and validated in Africa. This study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ) when used with Nigerian adolescents. Parents and caregivers of two hundred and five adolescents completed the SCQ Lifetime form while the adolescents were assessed for ASD using the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, 2nd Edition (ADOS-2). Factor structure and convergent and discriminative validity were examined, along with the sensitivity and specificity of the SCQ in identifying participants with an autism spectrum disorder. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to examine the factor structure, while logistic regression and Pearson's correlation coefficient were used to examine the validities. The SCQ had good internal consistency, discriminative, and convergent validity. A cut-off score of 10 revealed sensitivity = 0.81 and specificity = 0.88 for the identification of autism spectrum disorder. AUC was 0.83, p < 0.001, 95% CI [0.77, 0.90]. The results of this study provide evidence to support the retention of the original four factors of the SCQ. The SCQ has good psychometric properties when used with Nigerian adolescents.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2024 · doi:10.1002/aur.3038