This questionnaire examines autistic traits within an individual. It is a self-report questionnaire and that also means that not all scores may be reliable because an autistic person may not always understand the questions properly.
It is therefore wise to complete this questionnaire together with someone who knows the person with possible autistic traits very well (e.g. partner, good friend, family member).
The questionnaire can be paused: it will store your answers. However, it istrongly recommended to fill it in in just one take (about 50-60 min).
This questionnaire is a (light) adaptation of the semi-structured anamnestic interview drawn up by the Autism Expertise Center in the Netherlands. The intention here is that the client and/or a family member can answer the questions before this interview. Based on these answers, the likelihood of an ASD diagnosis is calculated.
This can be done by using the most characteristic questions/symptoms associated with ASD. When developing this online questionnaire, the NIDA questionnaire (Vuijk, 3rd edition 2023) was also taken into account in order to arrive at the most relevant questions. After all, both the NIDA interview and the DSM-5 interview of the Autism Expertise Center are very similar. Both use the DSM-V guidelines.
PLEASE NOTE: This online questionnaire is not a replacement for the clinical interview. As emphasized in both manuals (by Richard Vuijk and Annelies Spek), only an experienced diagnostician can determine whether there are sufficient symptoms of ASD based on behavioral observations, previous reports, developmental history and the interview itself.
However, I believe that diagnosis can be optimized if clients and/or family members can indicate in advance in their own time how and to what extent symptoms are present. Because an automated report is then made of their answers, the diagnostician can improve the interview with this report in hand and therefore form a judgment more quickly and possibly more reliably.
Again: the client's preliminary work is an additional tool to optimize this diagnostic interview.
Unfortunately, there is still no 'gold standard questionnaire' (if you look at psychometric data, which is often collected infrequently or even unstructured) to correctly diagnose ASD.
Privacy:
As a clinical neuropsychologist, I am bound by the professional code of our association NVGzP. This means that your data is stored as anonymously as possible and I am subject to professional secrecy. My BIG registration number is 49050080925 and you can look me up in the BIG register: www.bigregister.nl.
In order to receive a report of this online DSM-5 ASD questionnaire in a secure manner, you must be logged in to your own Google account. You must also enter an email address so that the system knows where the report can be sent.
N.B.: this email address will be destroyed within 1 month so that you can no longer request a report because it can no longer be traced back to whom the stored data belongs to. If you have not received a report by email, you can email me at 3zpsychologie@gmail.com within 1 month after completing the AQ.
Tip: if you really do not want your real email address to be known, create a fake gmail account so that you can receive the report on it.
