The SRS-2 (Social Responsiveness Scale, Second Edition) is a 65-item questionnaire used to screen for autism spectrum disorder and measure the severity of social difficulties. It covers ages 2½ through adulthood, takes about 15 minutes to complete, and is filled out by a parent, teacher, or the individual themselves rather than administered by a clinician in a testing room.
Unlike assessments that simply flag “autism” or “not autism,” the SRS-2 treats social impairment as a spectrum, capturing everything from subtle difficulties to more pronounced challenges. This makes it useful both for initial screening and for tracking how someone’s social functioning changes over time, such as before and after an intervention.
What the SRS-2 Measures
The questionnaire breaks social functioning into five areas, each producing its own score:
- Social Awareness: the ability to pick up on social cues, like noticing someone’s tone of voice or facial expression.
- Social Cognition: understanding why people behave the way they do and interpreting the meaning behind social interactions.
- Social Communication: the back-and-forth of conversation, including sharing emotions and responding appropriately to others.
- Social Motivation: the drive to engage socially, including interest in interacting with peers and willingness to join group activities.
- Restricted Interests and Repetitive Behavior: patterns like rigid routines, intense fixations on specific topics, or repetitive movements.
Two of these subscales, Social Communication and Restricted Interests and Repetitive Behavior, map directly onto the two core diagnostic criteria for autism in the DSM-5. That alignment makes it straightforward for clinicians to compare SRS-2 results against the formal diagnostic framework.
The Four Available Forms
The SRS-2 comes in four versions designed for different age groups and respondents:
- Preschool Form: for children ages 2½ to 4½, completed by a parent or caregiver.
- School-Age Form: for children and adolescents ages 4 to 18, completed by a parent or teacher.
- Adult Form: for ages 19 and older, completed by a relative, spouse, or someone who knows the person well.
- Adult Self-Report Form: also for ages 19 and older, but filled out by the individual being assessed.
Having both an observer-rated and self-report option for adults is particularly useful. Clinicians can compare how someone perceives their own social functioning against how others experience them, which often reveals meaningful differences.
How Scoring Works
Each of the 65 items is rated on a scale from “not true” to “almost always true.” Raw scores are converted into T-scores, which compare the individual’s results to a normative sample of the same age and gender. The T-score ranges break down into four categories:
- 59 or below: within normal limits
- 60 to 65: mild difficulties
- 66 to 75: moderate difficulties
- 76 or above: severe difficulties
A total score in the moderate or severe range suggests clinically significant social impairment consistent with autism spectrum disorder, though the SRS-2 alone is not enough to make a diagnosis. Scores in the mild range can indicate social difficulties that stem from autism, anxiety, ADHD, or other conditions. The subscale scores help pinpoint where the difficulties are concentrated, which is often more actionable than the total score alone.
How Accurate Is It?
Validation studies have found solid diagnostic accuracy for the SRS-2 as a screening tool. In a study of Korean preschoolers, the scale achieved a sensitivity of about 78 to 83% and a specificity of 87%, meaning it correctly identified most children with autism while keeping false positives relatively low. For children over 30 months, the area under the curve (a measure of overall accuracy) reached 0.90, which is considered strong for a screening instrument.
Accuracy was slightly lower for children under 30 months, with specificity dropping to around 71%. This is expected, since social behaviors are still developing rapidly at that age, making it harder to distinguish atypical patterns from normal variation. For this youngest group, the SRS-2 works best as one piece of a broader evaluation rather than a standalone screen.
Where the SRS-2 Fits in an Evaluation
The SRS-2 is typically one component of a larger diagnostic process. A full autism evaluation usually includes direct observation, developmental history, and cognitive or language testing. The SRS-2 adds a quantitative, standardized perspective from people who see the individual in everyday settings, which complements the snapshot a clinician gets during an office visit.
Because the questionnaire takes only about 15 minutes and requires no specialized training to fill out, it’s practical for schools, pediatric offices, and community mental health settings. Teachers and parents can each complete a form independently, giving the evaluator two perspectives on how the individual functions in different environments. A child who struggles socially at school but seems fine at home (or vice versa) will show different patterns across raters, and that discrepancy itself is clinically informative.
The SRS-2 is also widely used in research settings and treatment monitoring. Because it produces a continuous score rather than a binary yes-or-no result, it can detect subtle shifts in social functioning that a diagnostic label alone would miss. This makes it valuable for measuring whether a therapy or educational program is making a meaningful difference.
The instrument is published by Western Psychological Services and has been available since 2012. It remains one of the most commonly used autism screening tools in both clinical practice and research worldwide.