The autism-spectrum quotient (AQ) is a questionnaire published in 2001 by Simon Baron-Cohen and his colleagues at the Autism Research Centre in Cambridge, UK.
Consisting of fifty questions, it aims to investigate whether adults of average intelligence (defined as an IQ of 80 or higher by the questionnaire) have symptoms of autism spectrum conditions.
[5] The PhenX Toolkit uses age-specific versions of AQ as its adult and adolescent screening protocols for Symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorders.
However, although the test is popularly used for self-diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders, the authors caution that it is not intended to be diagnostic, and advise that anyone who obtains a high score and is suffering some distress should seek professional medical advice and not jump to any conclusions.
Mathematics, physical sciences, and engineering students were found to score significantly higher, e.g., 21.8 on average for mathematicians and 21.4 for computer scientists.