title: Social and emotional competence in traumatic brain injury: new and established assessment tools.
abstract: Chronic social/emotional deficits are common in moderate to severe traumatic brain injury (TBI), leading to significant functional difficulties. Objective, quantitative tools for assessing social/emotional competence are an important adjunct to cognitive assessments. We review existing social/emotional measures, conclude that theory of mind tests are not adequate for clinical assessments of social competence, and explain the development and piloting of novel measures in a small group of moderate to severe TBI patients (N = 16) and non-brain-damaged controls (N = 16). The novel measures are the Global Interpersonal Skills Test (GIST), a questionnaire measuring informant-rated social skills; the Assessment of Social Context (ASC), a video-based task examining understanding of others' emotions, attitudes, and intentions; the Social Interpretations Test, a social framing task based on Heider and Simmel ( 1944 ); and Awareness of Interoception, a heartbeat-detection paradigm related to physiological self-awareness. In a MANOVA, other-rated social skills (GIST), ASC, and Awareness of Interoception scores were significantly lower for TBI patients than controls. ASC, r(31) = .655, and Social Interpretations, r(31) = .460, scores were significantly correlated with informant-rated social skills (GIST). We encourage clinicians to add social/emotional measures to assessments of TBI patients.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
authors.forename: Catherine A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Hynes
authors.forename: Valerie E
authors.initials: VE
authors.lastname: Stone
authors.forename: Louise A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Kelso
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D055815:Young Adult