Abstract
The autism-spectrum quotient (AQ) measures autistic traits and has been studied in different countries, sometimes with the English version, and sometimes with translated versions. However, the language of the questionnaire might influence non-native English speakers’ answering tendency. In the current study we compared the responses on the AQ of multilingual Malaysians (96 participants filled out the AQ in English and Mandarin, and 79 participants filled out English and Bahasa Malaysia). Participants scored higher on the English AQ compared to the Mandarin AQ, whereas there was no difference between the English and Bahasa Malaysia AQ score. Analysis of the response style suggests the same person might display discrepant response styles in different languages, which seems to be related to language proficiency.
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Notes
Analyses including the outliers showed similar results, F(1, 78) = .94, MSE = 19.6, p = .34, ηp2 = .012.
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Acknowledgments
We would like to express our deep gratitude to Omidreza Fani for his help in data collection. We would also like to extend our thanks to Nor Syafiqah Syahrain Mohd Shafawi, Michele Anne and Safira Binti Abu Bakar for their help in translation.
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MDV contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by ZJC. The first draft of the manuscript was written by ZJC and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Chee, Z.J., de Vries, M. Language Matters: The Autism-Spectrum Quotient in English, Mandarin and Bahasa Malaysia. J Autism Dev Disord 52, 3814–3824 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-021-05253-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-021-05253-9