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The Broad Autism Phenotype Questionnaire

coda.io Broad Autism Phenotype Questionnaire

Abstract

The broad autism phenotype (BAP) is a set of personality and language characteristics that reflect the phenotypic expression of the genetic liability to autism, in non-autistic relatives of autistic individuals. These characteristics are milder but qualitatively similar to the defining features of autism. A new instrument designed to measure the BAP in adults, the Broad Autism Phenotype Questionnaire (BAPQ), was administered to 86 parents of autistic individuals and 64 community control parents. Sensitivity and specificity of the BAPQ for detecting the BAP were high (>70%). Parents of children with autism had significantly higher scores on all three subscales: aloof personality, rigid personality, and pragmatic language. This instrument provides a valid and efficient measure for characterizing the BAP.

Note: This questionnaire is meant to be administered to individuals with an autistic relative to assess if they have traits that are similar to autism but not enough for a diagnosis, ig?

I would like to read your thoughts on the scale and general concept of this scale. Also, feel free to share your scores!

Link the the actual article.

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33 comments

  • My biggest complaint to this questionnaire is that they don't define what is "very rare" vs "rare" vs...etc. My interpretation on it could be different from another autistic and drastically different versus an NT as we could have drastically different interpretations of just the meanings of the possible answers. For instance "very rare" could be once in 2 months or it could be once in 5 years depending on the person.

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    • Yes! The options are pretty vague because they depend respondents having a standard idea of what those abstract ranked answers mean. I need concrete definitions. Otherwise, the individual item's scale is partially dependent on what I think those words mean in relation to the statistical outcome of respondents that were used to establish the psychometrics of the test. I have confidence that the methods used by researchers that develop these scales are sound and based on statistical analyses paired with valid and tried measures, but I still get hung up on responding to the items.

      Funnily (is this even a word?), I completed an executive functioning assessment for my autism therapist about a month ago. After I completed it, I sent her an email that took me ~30 mins to write and proof because I had concerns with the wording of the questions and was worried that the exam might not properly reflect my experiences. There's one I remember was asking something about, "I get upset quickly or easily over little things." The available options for the responses were something like the one in the BAP questionnaire, but there were only 3 options. The concern over this item was with the wording of the question. I argued that if I'm easily upset over things, then they aren't insignificant to me. I could try to guess based on what I've seen in other people or what they have told me, but that would based on what they think is insignificant. I rate how significant something is to me by how much it affects me. The item is really assessing circular logic. If I answer "never", then my logic is sound. If I answer "often", then I'm not making sense because clearly the things that upset me easily are significant to me.

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  • I completed this questionnaire before reading about it to limit any possible impact my knowledge of the scale could have on my responses. When I got the scores,

    Aloof: 4.25

    Pragmatic Language: 4.17

    Rigid: 4.17

    I thought, "Hmm, maybe I'm not that autistic after all." Then, I saw the statistics of the study here, and cracked up. I'm definitely 100% autistic. When will this impostor syndrome end?

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  • Not related to the article, at all, but it just popped up in my head. Is having an autistic child related at all to drug use? As in party drugs, nothing too heavy (weed, molly, acid).

    Have a friend who has an autistic daughter, was just wondering if this was somewhat related (we used to party back in the day, I know he did a lot more shit than I did... him and his, later on in life, wife... though she didn't do as much as him as well).

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    • We'd probably see higher rates of it in societies that used those drugs often, which afaik we don't

      specifically mescaline, mushrooms, ayahuasca/dmt, and weed have all been used by humans for a long time, and I haven't heard anything about higher rates of neurodivergence in those societies

      i could see mdma having an impact like that though, since it's much riskier than psychedelics and weed (iirc it can be cardiotoxic, neurotoxic, and much more likely to be addictive than those) and we don't have historical/traditional users of it to look at

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    • I don't know much about that. I remember that when I was reviewing my family history for the assessment process, I learned that my mother smoked cigarettes while pregnant with me. I looked it up, and there were studies that linked smoking tobacco cigarettes while preggars with an autistic child. I don't know if it's the smoking is a spurious relationship or causal tho.

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  • Here are mine.....

    Aloof: 5.67

    Pragmatic Language: 4.25

    Rigid: 5.17

    SUPER AUTISM!!!!!

    The 'aloof' description cracks me up- there's a photo of me possibly 5 or 6 years of age with me looking 'aloof' (my mothers description). I look so not interested and 'over it'...I'd actually post it here for a laugh, but I'd rather remain anonymous

    HOW THE FUCK WAS IT NOT PICKED UP ON????

    Oh I forget, I'm a woman and I slip under the radar 🤣

    edit 'years of age'

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  • Sheesh, I knew I was autistic but not 5+ out of 6 in each category autistic. The imposter syndrome is real. 😂

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  • Observing my family members, they all seem to fall into this category (I'm diagnosed as autistic). They tend to be either introverted and at most only keeps a few friends despite the constant socialization.

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    • I think it might be interesting to have them complete some autism questionnaires. Some of them might be masking and not diagnosed.

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  • I understand this post is a couple of weeks old now, but I'm not able to access the site using Firefox on mobile using ublock / privacy badger. Frustrating spin as the site loads the content then slammed me with a non-compatible browser overlay.

    Adding to insult, a simple misclick via chrome ate all my entries and I've not got the capacity to finish what I'd almost completed nor attempt to complete the questionnaire again.

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