A Fresh Pair of Eyes: A Blind Observation Method for Evaluating Social Skills of Children with ASD in a Naturalistic Peer Situation in School.
The Social skills Observation Measure (SOM) is a direct observation method for social skills used in naturalistic everyday situations in school. This study describes the development of the SOM and investigates its psychometric properties in 86 children with Autism spectrum disorder, aged 9.8-13.1 years. The interrater reliability was found to be good to excellent. The convergent validity was low in relation to parent and teacher reports of social skills, and also to parent interview on adaptive social functioning. Therefore this direct observation seems to provide additional information on the frequency and quality of social behaviors in daily life situations. As such it contributes to parent and teacher information as a blind measurement to evaluate Social Skills Training.
Department of Psychiatry, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands. v.dekker@accare.nl.|Accare, University Center for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, PO Box 660, 9700 AR, Groningen, The Netherlands. v.dekker@accare.nl.
Vera
V
Dekker
Accare, University Center for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, PO Box 660, 9700 AR, Groningen, The Netherlands.|Department of Clinical Psychology and Experimental Psychopathology, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
Maaike H
MH
Nauta
Accare, University Center for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, PO Box 660, 9700 AR, Groningen, The Netherlands.
Erik J
EJ
Mulder
Department of Psychiatry, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
Sjoerd
S
Sytema
Department of Psychiatry, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.|Accare, University Center for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, PO Box 660, 9700 AR, Groningen, The Netherlands.
Annelies
A
de Bildt
D000293:Adolescent; D000067877:Autism Spectrum Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D019370:Observation / Q000379:methods*; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012574:Schools; D012917:Social Adjustment; D066107:Social Skills
ASD; Direct observation; Outcome measure; Reliability; Social skills; Validity