Stability of Autistic Traits from 5 to 8 Years of Age among Children in the General Population

Little is known about the across time stability of autistic traits during the transition period from preschool to school age in the general population. The current study compared autistic traits assessed by a mother-reported quantitative measure, the Social Responsiveness Scale, at age 5 and 8 years and examined the intraclass correlation coefficients of scores across the period for 168 Japanese community-based children. Results showed that total and two subdomain-related autistic trait scores remained primarily stable in males and females. This stability was observed for both children with higher and lower autistic traits scores with a possible sex-specific pattern. Our findings suggest that autistic traits in the general population can be reliably assessed using quantitative measures for this age period.