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Mental Health · 50 questions · ~4 min
Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ)
The Autism-Spectrum Quotient (Baron-Cohen et al. 2001) is a 50-item self-report measure of autistic traits in adults of normal intelligence: social skill, attention switching, attention to detail, communication and imagination, ten items each. Each item scores one point when answered in the autistic direction, whether slightly or definitely, so the total runs from 0 to 50.
The wording and scoring are those used by UK Biobank, and your percentile is exact: it comes from the score distribution of the 161,269 UK Biobank participants who completed the questionnaire, reconstructed from the published histogram and matching all nine published deciles and the mean (17.5, SD 6.9). They are British volunteers recruited at ages 40–69 in 2006–10, so older and healthier than the population at large. In the original study 80% of autistic adults but only 2% of controls scored 32 or more; a cut-off of 26 has been recommended for screening. About 3% of UK Biobank scores 32 or more.
The wording and scoring are those used by UK Biobank, and your percentile is exact: it comes from the score distribution of the 161,269 UK Biobank participants who completed the questionnaire, reconstructed from the published histogram and matching all nine published deciles and the mean (17.5, SD 6.9). They are British volunteers recruited at ages 40–69 in 2006–10, so older and healthier than the population at large. In the original study 80% of autistic adults but only 2% of controls scored 32 or more; a cut-off of 26 has been recommended for screening. About 3% of UK Biobank scores 32 or more.
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Optional: provide your age and sex to see how your scores compare to population norms (N ≈ 127,000).