Measuring social skills of children and adolescents in a Chinese population : preliminary evidence on the reliability and validity of the translated Chinese version of the social skills improvement system-rating scales (SSIS-RS-C)

Abstract

The Social Skills Improvement System-Rating Scales (SSIS-RS; Gresham & Elliott, 2008) are designed to assist in the screening and classification of students (aged 5–18 years) who are suspected of presenting with social skills deficits and to offer guidelines in the development of interventions to remediate those types of problems. The objective of this study is to examine the preliminary reliability and validity of the translated Chinese version of the SSIS-RS, referred to as the SSIS-RS-C. In this study, parent-reported social skills and problem behaviors among students with typical development (n = 79) were compared with those of age- and gender-matched students with a known developmental disability (n = 79) using the SSIS-RS-C. The results indicated that the SSIS-RS-C subscale scores in all the disability groups were significantly different except for those in the Assertion scale for one disability group. Furthermore, the normative sample of typically developing children and adolescents (aged 5–12 and 13–18 years, n = 567) from Hong Kong was established to improve the psychometric properties of the SSIS-RS-C. There were moderate to strong relationships between the common subscales across all forms of the SSIS-RS-C. Acceptable to excellent levels of internal consistency across all common subscales was also obtained. The scores for the Hong Kong sample (n = 567) derived from the use of the SSIS-RS-C were then compared to the normative sample scores from the American version of the SSIS-RS. It was found that there were statistically significant differences on five out of the seven SSIS-RS-C Social Skill subscales for children aged 5–12 years and on four out of the seven SSIS-RS-C Social Skills subscales for the adolescent group (aged 13–18 years). Also, there were statistically significant differences between the American and Hong Kong samples on all of the SSIS-RS-C Problem Behavior scale scores. It was concluded that the SSIS-RS-C is a promising instrument for clinicians to be able to differentiate social skills and problem behaviors among students presenting with and without developmental disabilities in Hong Kong contexts.