Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2010 Jun 17;1(1):10.
doi: 10.1186/2040-2392-1-10.

Defining the broader, medium and narrow autism phenotype among parents using the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ)

Sally Wheelwright  1 , Bonnie Auyeung, Carrie Allison, Simon Baron-Cohen
Affiliations

Defining the broader, medium and narrow autism phenotype among parents using the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ)

Sally Wheelwright et al. Mol Autism. .

Abstract

Background: The Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) is a self-report questionnaire for quantifying autistic traits. This study tests whether the AQ can differentiate between parents of children with an autism spectrum condition (ASC) and control parents. In this paper, the use of the AQ to define the broader, medium and narrow autism phenotypes (BAP, MAP, NAP) is reported, and the proportion of parents with each phenotype is compared between the two groups.

Methods: A sample of 571 fathers and 1429 mothers of children with an ASC completed the AQ, along with 349 fathers and 658 mothers of developing typically children.

Results: Both mothers and fathers of the diagnosed children scored higher than the control parents on total AQ score and on four out of five of the subscales. Additionally, there were more parents of diagnosed children with a BAP, MAP or NAP.

Conclusions: The AQ provides an efficient method for quantifying where an individual lies along the dimension of autistic traits, and extends the notion of a broader phenotype among first-degree relatives of those with ASC. The AQ is likely to have many applications, including population and clinical screening, and stratification in genetic studies.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) scores in the Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC) parent group.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) scores in the control parent group.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Percent age of parents with each phenotype. ASC = autism spectrum condition; BAP = broader autism phenotype; MAP = medium autism phenotype; NAP = narrow autism phenotype
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. A.P.A. DSM-IV Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 4. Washington DC: American Psychiatric Association; 1994.
    1. Bailey A, Le Couteur A, Gottesman I, Bolton P, Simmonoff E, Yuzda E, Rutter M. Autism as a strongly genetic disorder: evidence from a British twin study. Psychol Med. 1995;25:63–77. doi: 10.1017/S0033291700028099. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Folstein S, Rutter M. Infantile autism: A genetic study of 21 twin pairs. J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 1977;18:297–321. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.1977.tb00443.x. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Constantino JN, Todd RD. Intergenerational transmission of subthreshold autistic traits in the general population. Biol Psychiatry. 2005;57:655–660. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2004.12.014. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Hoekstra RA, Bartels M, Verweij CJH, Boomsma DI. Heritability of autistic traits in the general population. Arch Pediat Adolesc Med. 2007;161:372–377. doi: 10.1001/archpedi.161.4.372. - DOI - PubMed