An Examination of Family Transmission of Traits Measured by the Social Responsiveness Scale-Short Form

PurposeThe Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) is frequently used in research settings to measure characteristics associated with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). A short version has been developed but not yet tested for certain properties of the full SRS, such as familiality. The purpose of this study was to determine if prior familiality findings for the full SRS can be replicated using the short form by measuring the associations of the parental Social Responsiveness Scale-Short Form (SRS-SF) scores with child ASD diagnoses and child SRS-SF scores.MethodsWe used a nested case-control study within a longitudinal cohort study design. Participants were selected from the Nurses' Health Study II (NHS II). Cases were children of study participants who had been diagnosed with ASD, while controls had not been diagnosed with ASD and were frequency matched by year of birth to cases. 2144 out of 3161 eligible participants returned SRS forms for a child and at least one parent. Participants in NHS II completed SRS forms for their spouses and spouses completed SRS forms for NHS II participants. Parental SRS-SF scores were based on a subset of 16 questions from the SRS. ASD diagnosis among children was reported by the mothers and validated in a subset using the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised, as well as child SRS-SF scores.ResultsChildren whose parents both had elevated SRS-SF scores (those in the top 20% of the study distribution) had a higher odds of ASD diagnosis than those who did not have elevated parental scores (OR 2.25; 95% CI 1.41, 3.58). Additionally, children whose fathers had elevated SRS-SF scores had a higher odds of ASD diagnosis (OR 2.18; 95% CI 1.60, 2.97) than those whose fathers scores were not elevated. In sex-stratified analyses, male children with elevated parental SRS-SF scores had a higher odds of ASD diagnosis than those who did not have elevated parental scores. These associations were not as evident among female children. Parental SRS-SF scores also predicted child SRS-SF scores among controls.ConclusionThese findings are similar to prior findings for the full SRS and support the ability of the SRS-SF to capture familiality of ASD-related traits.