RAADS-14 Screen
Last reviewed · Evidence summary, not a diagnostic service
- Purpose
- Case finding before a fuller adult autism evaluation
- Format
- 14 self-report items with four time-course responses
- Score range
- 0–42; one item is reverse scored
- Original cutoff
- 14 or above, chosen to favor sensitivity
- Original setting
- Adult psychiatric samples in Sweden; intellectual disability excluded
- What it is not
- A diagnosis, severity scale, or substitute for developmental history
What is the RAADS-14 Screen?
RAADS-14 Screen is the name Eriksson, Andersen, and Bejerot gave a short adult autism screening questionnaire derived from the Ritvo Autism Asperger Diagnostic Scale–Revised (RAADS-R). Its intended role was to identify adult psychiatric outpatients who may need further diagnostic investigation, not to make the diagnosis itself.
The developers selected 14 items from the RAADS-R through a multi-phase item-reduction study. The items ask about experiences both now and before age 16, reflecting autism's developmental course. The official paper describes the instrument as a self-evaluation questionnaire and notes that clinician review can help clarify misunderstood or inconsistent answers.
What do the 14 items cover?
The 2013 paper used three factor labels. They describe clusters observed in that study; they are not separate diagnoses and do not have published diagnostic cutoffs of their own.
“Mentalizing deficits” · 7 items
The paper's historical label groups items about interpreting feelings and expectations, conversational timing, nonverbal cues, literal meaning, detail focus, and reactions to sudden change.
Social anxiety · 4 items
These items concern functioning in groups, knowing how to act socially, small talk, friendship, and socializing. One small-talk item is reverse scored.
Sensory reactivity · 3 items
These items concern aversive textures, sensory overwhelm, withdrawal to reduce stimulation, and painful or hard-to-tolerate sounds.
A factor-analysis detail matters: when the autistic participants were included during development, their broad endorsement of items produced a one-factor pattern. The authors interpreted a three-factor solution after excluding that group from the exploratory analysis. The domain labels should therefore be presented as study-derived groupings, not as proof that the screen measures three independent clinical traits.
The RAADS-14 does not contain a dedicated masking, camouflaging, social-exhaustion, or routines subscale. Those experiences may matter in a clinical history, but they should not be presented as score modifiers that the validation study established.
How is the RAADS-14 scored?
The official form offers four response choices: an experience is true now and when the person was young; true only now; true only when younger than 16; or never true. For 13 items, those responses are scored 3, 2, 1, and 0. Item 6 describes a normative social skill and is scored in the reverse direction. The 14 item scores are summed.
- Minimum: 0
- Maximum: 42
- Original screening cutoff: 14 or above
The original publication did not establish mild, moderate, or severe score bands. It also did not show that a small difference between two scores reflects a meaningful difference in autism severity or support needs.
What did the original RAADS-14 study find?
The full study included 1,233 adults: 135 with an existing autism-spectrum diagnosis, 508 psychiatric controls, and 590 non-psychiatric controls. In the phase-III validation analysis, 77 autistic participants were compared with ADHD, other psychiatric, and non-psychiatric groups.
| Comparison group | Sensitivity | Specificity | Area under the curve |
|---|---|---|---|
| ADHD without an autism diagnosis (n=301) | 97% | 46% | 0.88 |
| Other psychiatric disorders (n=69) | 97% | 64% | 0.91 |
| Non-psychiatric controls (n=590) | 97% | 95% | 0.99 |
The combined study samples had median scores of 32 for autistic participants, 15 for participants with ADHD, 11 for participants with other psychiatric disorders, and 3 for non-psychiatric controls. Those group medians overlap and cannot be used to diagnose an individual.
The psychiatric comparisons are the important caution. Specificity of 46% against ADHD means that 54% of ADHD comparison participants without a recorded autism diagnosis were not excluded by the screen at the proposed cutoff. Against other psychiatric disorders, 36% was not excluded. A positive screen was therefore common among some people with other diagnoses.
The headline 97% sensitivity refers to the phase-III validation analysis. Across the combined phase-II and phase-III autistic sample, 9 of 135 participants scored below 14, including 2 who scored zero. A low score did not identify every autistic participant.
What can a RAADS-14 score tell you?
A score can
- Summarize responses to these 14 specific items.
- Flag that fuller assessment may be worth considering in a setting similar to the original study.
- Provide topics to discuss with a clinician alongside developmental and functional history.
A score cannot
- Confirm or rule out autism.
- Estimate a person's probability of being autistic from the total alone.
- Measure autism severity, support needs, masking, or quality of life.
- Reliably distinguish autism from ADHD, anxiety, or other conditions by itself.
Sensitivity and specificity describe a test in a particular study sample. They do not tell an individual the chance that they are autistic after a result; that also depends on who is being tested, why they were referred, and how diagnoses were established.
Limits of the evidence
- Setting and selection. Psychiatric participants came from 17 Swedish clinics and diagnosis-focused web communities. Non-psychiatric controls were recruited at mental-health lectures rather than as a representative population sample.
- Existing diagnoses. The study used diagnoses already assigned in clinical practice; it did not independently repeat a full diagnostic assessment to confirm or exclude autism for every participant.
- Historical criteria. Participants were diagnosed under DSM-IV-era categories. The paper mapped items to proposed DSM-5 criteria, but it was not a contemporary DSM-5 diagnostic-accuracy study.
- Cognitive range. The study focused on adults described by the authors as having normal intelligence and excluded intellectual disability. Performance should not be assumed outside that population.
- Group matching. Samples were not matched on sex, age, or intelligence, and about 10% of participants did not report gender.
- Self-report limits. Interpretation, recall, insight, response style, and willingness to endorse an item can affect the total. The authors recommended clinician review to clarify ambiguity.
The original study does not establish special accuracy for women, late-identified adults, or people who camouflage. A later independent New Zealand study examined the RAADS-14 in another population, underscoring why Swedish estimates should not automatically be treated as universal.
RAADS-14 versus RAADS-R
The names are similar, but the instruments are not interchangeable. Evidence or cutoffs from one should not be applied to the other.
| Feature | RAADS-14 Screen | RAADS-R |
|---|---|---|
| Number of items | 14 | 80 |
| Original role | Brief screening of adult psychiatric outpatients | Clinician-assisted adjunct in adult diagnostic assessment |
| Author-labeled domains | Mentalizing deficits, social anxiety, sensory reactivity | Social relatedness, circumscribed interests, language, sensory-motor |
| Score range | 0–42 | 0–240 |
| Original proposed cutoff | 14 or above | 65 or above |
The RAADS-R validation paper says the longer instrument was designed for clinician-supported use in a clinical setting, not as a mail-in or online screen. The UK NICE guideline lists RAADS-R as one possible formal aid in more complex adult assessment, while recommending the AQ-10—not RAADS-14—for initial case finding in adults without moderate or severe learning disability.
For a broader comparison, see RAADS-R vs AQ vs CAT-Q.
What should you do with a RAADS-14 result?
If a result raises questions, treat it as one piece of information. It can help to note concrete examples of early and current social-communication patterns, sensory experiences, repetitive or restricted patterns, changes in routine, daily functioning, and any coexisting mental-health or neurodevelopmental concerns. Where appropriate and available, school records or input from someone who knew the person in childhood may add context.
A score below 14 should not end a conversation when developmental history or clinical judgment still suggests autism. A score at or above 14 should not be used to self-diagnose or to assume that overlapping experiences come from autism rather than ADHD, anxiety, trauma, mood, communication, or other factors.
Learn more in How adult autism is diagnosed. LifeByLogic's Adult Autism Self-Inventory is a separate educational inventory; it does not administer or score the RAADS-14 Screen.
Primary sources and evidence notes
- Eriksson JM, Andersen LMJ, Bejerot S (2013). RAADS-14 Screen: validity of a screening tool for autism spectrum disorder in an adult psychiatric population. Molecular Autism, 4:49. DOI 10.1186/2040-2392-4-49; PMID 24321513. This is the development and validation study behind the score and cutoff reported above.
- Official RAADS-14 Screen supplement. Published with the 2013 article; contains the original form, scoring instructions, domain membership, and reported sample medians.
- Ritvo RA and colleagues (2011). The Ritvo Autism Asperger Diagnostic Scale-Revised (RAADS-R): an international validation study. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 41:1076–1089. DOI 10.1007/s10803-010-1133-5; PMID 21086033. This is the primary paper for the longer instrument from which RAADS-14 items were selected.
- Kember SM, Williams MN (2021). Autism in Aotearoa: Is the RAADS-14 a Valid Tool for a New Zealand Population? European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 37(3). DOI 10.1027/1015-5759/a000598. This is an independent population-specific evaluation.
- NICE guideline CG142. Autism spectrum disorder in adults: diagnosis and management. Recommendations 1.2.3–1.2.10 distinguish initial case finding from comprehensive assessment and differential diagnosis.
License note. The 2013 RAADS-14 article and its published supplement are distributed under CC BY 2.0; the paper also thanks Edward Ritvo for permission to use RAADS-R items. The separate 2011 RAADS-R article is published under CC BY-NC 2.0. This glossary entry paraphrases the measure's coverage and links to the official form rather than reproducing all questionnaire items.