Verification of the utility of the social responsiveness scale for adults in non-clinical and clinical adult populations in Japan

Abstract

BackgroundRecently great attention has been paid to the still unmet clinical needs of most adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who live in the community, an increasing number of whom visit psychiatric clinics to seek accurate diagnosis and treatment of concurrent psychiatric symptoms. However, different from the case of children diagnosed with ASD in childhood, it is difficult in adults to identify the ASD symptoms underlying psychopathology and to differentiate ASD from other psychiatric disorders in general psychiatric practice. This study aimed to verify the utility of the Social Responsiveness Scale-Adult version (SRS-A), a quantitative measure for identifying ASD symptoms, in non-clinical and clinical adult populations in Japan.MethodsThe total sample aged 19 to 59 years consisted of a non-clinical population (n =592) and clinical population with and without ASD (n =142). We examined score distributions of the Japanese version of the scale, and the effects of gender, age, and rater on the distribution. We analyzed factor structure and internal consistency in the non-clinical normative sample, and analyzed convergent, divergent, and discriminative validities in the clinical sample. We applied receiver operator characteristic (ROC) analysis to determine optimal cutoff scores discriminating the ASD clinical population from the non-ASD clinical population.ResultsThe score distributed continuously, which replicated findings in children. For non-clinical adults, except in men aged 19 to 24 years, we found no or few gender, age, or rater effects. Both single- and two-factor models were supported for adults. Total SRS-A scores demonstrated high internal consistency and capably discriminated adults with ASD from those with non-ASD psychiatric disorders such as major depressive disorder, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder with an overlap across diagnoses. Moderate to high correlations of the SRS-A with other-rated ASD measures indicated sufficient convergent validity. Based on the ROC analysis, we recommend cutoff points by gender for use in clinical settings.ConclusionThis study provides additional supportive evidence that the Japanese version SRS-A can reliably and validly measure ASD symptoms in non-clinical and clinical adult populations, and thus can serve as a useful tool for ASD research as well as for secondary screening in Japanese adults.

The development of autistic social traits across childhood and adolescence in males and females

“…First, our findings are compatible with observations from cross‐sectional studies using alternative AST measures, which find females have lower levels of ASTs than males in child samples (Constantino & Todd, ), but that this gender difference is attenuated, or nonexistent in adult samples (e.g. Kanne, Christ, & Reiersen, ; Takei et al., ). Second, the SCDC is a well‐validated measure that continues to show high heritability in adolescence, as would be expected of a true measure of ASTs (St Pourcain et al., ).…”

Cognitive impairment and quality of life in patients with myotonic dystrophy type 1

“…Means and SD for the Japanese general population were obtained from published manuals and previous studies that had used cognitive tests and measured psychological variables . Age‐specific scores were used for the CAT, FAB, TMT, and WAIS‐III subtests .…”

“…Means and SD for the Japanese general population were obtained from published manuals and previous studies that had used cognitive tests and measured psychological variables. 13,14,[23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] Age-specific scores were used for the CAT, FAB, TMT, and WAIS-III subtests. 14,23,31,32 Significant impairment in general cognitive functioning was defined by a cutoff score of 23 on the MMSE.…”

An investigation of the frequency of social communication problems are among adults admitted to acute mental health wards

“…Additionally, establishing whether persons with ID whom meet diagnostic criteria for ASD experience additional stigma relative to those who do not meet such criteria will be useful in providing further information pertaining to the life experiences of this patient group. (Chan et al, 2017;Takei et al, 2014). A systematic review by Baghdadli et al (2017) concluded that the SRS-2 had satisfactory internal consistency and structural validity, based on a moderate level of evidence (Bölte, 2012;Takei et al, 2014), though a more recent study suggests higher levels of internal consistency (Chan, Smith, Hong, Greenberg, & Mailick, 2017).…”