Objectives: To examine disparities in caregiver-reported SCQ scores by child sex and SES factors.
Methods: A population-based epidemiologic study of autism in children aged 6-8 involving a multi-stage case identification design was conducted in PingTung, Taiwan from 2008-2010. The SCQ rates autism-related behaviors and was used as a screener to identify children at high risk for ASD. The SCQ was translated and back-translated into traditional Chinese Mandarin and pilot tested before its use in this population. Studies from Western countries recommend a cut-point of 15 on the SCQ for differentiating between likely ASD and non-ASD diagnoses. This analysis includes a total of 2279 primary caregivers (60.0% mothers, 17.5% fathers, 22.5% grandparents and others) who completed the screener on their child (1083 boys and 1156 girls).
Results: Fathers reported significantly higher SCQ scores (more behavioral concerns) than did mothers and other caregivers (p-values all <.0001). As education levels of mother’s and fathers’ increased, the reported SCQ scores decreased with p-values <.001 for fathers and <.0001 for mothers. As expected, SCQ scores of children born preterm (7.66 ± 5.71) were significantly higher than those born full term (6.25 ± 4.63), with p<.0001. Using 15 as a cut-off, compared to fathers with an Associate/college degree, fathers with an education level <=middle school were 4 times (OR= 4.36, 95%CI: 2.76-6.90) more likely to report SCQ>=15, while those with a high school degree were almost twice (OR=1.82, 95%CI: 1.17-2.82) as likely to do so. A similar pattern was observed with mother’s education level where <=middle school was 5.79 times (95%CI: 3.58-9.36) and high school was 1.83 times (95%CI: 1.15-2.92) more likely to report SCQ>=15 compared to Associate/college. Moreover, children born preterm were more than twice (OR=2.72, 95%CI: 1.77-4.19) as likely as full term children to have a reported SCQ score>=15.
Conclusions: Caregiver reported autism-related behaviors are associated with respondents’ characteristics in this large scale population-based study in Taiwan. Fathers reported more behavioral issues in their child than did mothers and other caregivers; and lower education levels were associated with reports of clinically concerning autism-related behaviors. Psychometrics of the SCQ and validation of data using multiple respondents on the same child will be discussed.
See more of: Clinical Phenotype
See more of: Symptoms, Diagnosis & Phenotype