When father doesn't know best: selective disagreement between self-report and informant report of the broad autism phenotype in parents of a child with autism.
Fathers of autistic kids often under-report their own broad autism traits, so gather informant BAPQ data on dads before you plan parent coaching.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked moms and dads of kids with autism to fill out the Broad Autism Phenotype Questionnaire about themselves.
They also had another adult who knew each parent well complete the same form about that parent.
Then they compared the two scores to see if parents and informants agreed.
What they found
Mothers’ self-scores lined up closely with how informants rated them.
Fathers who actually had broad autism traits gave themselves much lower scores than their informants did.
In short, dads with the traits often did not report them.
How this fits with other research
Geurts et al. (2008) saw the same group of dads respond more slowly to social eye cues, hinting that the traits are there even when dads don’t mention them.
Ng et al. (2019) and Hanson et al. (2013) also found that adding a second rater drops prevalence numbers, backing the idea that one view is not enough.
Dudley et al. (2019) widened the lens to moms and showed BAP rigidity links to emotion regulation, proving the questionnaire picks up real traits when someone answers honestly.
Why it matters
If you screen parents for BAP traits, always collect a spouse or close friend rating for fathers. Dad-only data can miss traits that shape parent training style and family stress. One extra form takes five minutes and gives you a truer picture.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The Broad Autism Phenotype Questionnaire (BAPQ) is a reliable tool for identifying three autism-related traits-social aloofness, pragmatic language abnormalities and rigid personality--within families of a person with autism and the general population. Although little is known concerning agreement between self-report and informant report versions of the BAPQ, identifying individual characteristics affecting agreement between the two can highlight important considerations for maximizing its yield, particularly when only one version is administered. Here, analysis of self-report and informant report of the BAPQ completed by 444 parents of a child with autism revealed moderate to strong agreement between the two versions for all three broad autism phenotype (BAP) traits when the self-reporting parent did not possess the trait being assessed. In contrast, disagreement selectively occurred when the assessed parent was positive for the BAP trait being rated. This pattern was driven primarily by fathers who were positive for a BAP trait endorsing lower levels of that trait relative to informant report. This discrepancy did not occur for mothers, nor did it occur for fathers lacking BAP traits. Because this pattern was specific to fathers positive for BAP traits, it likely reflects selective "blind spots" in their self-reporting and not poorer self-reporting by fathers more broadly, nor a general tendency of overreporting by informant mothers. The presence of BAP traits in informing parents, however, largely did not reduce agreement between self-report and informant report. In sum, self-report may underestimate the presence of BAP traits in fathers but is generally consistent with informant report for mothers.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2014 · doi:10.1002/aur.1425