The psychometric properties of the children's social understanding scale among atypically developing children and adolescents

Abstract

Theory of mind (ToM) has been frequently assessed via behavioral assessments. Recently, Tahiroglu and colleagues developed the parent-report Children's Social Understanding Scale (CSUS) to assess individual differences in ToM. They found it reliable and valid in assessing ToM of typically developing preschoolers. In the present study, we examined the psychometric properties of the CSUS in ToM assessment of children and adolescents with atypical development, who are known to have difficulties in understanding others' mental states. In two studies, we collected data from 106 children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; M-age = 12.06 years, SD = 2.91) and 70 children and adolescents with hearing impairment (HI; M-age = 7.3 years, SD = 2.3). The children's social understanding was assessed via the CSUS (short form in the ASD and full form in the HI samples) and behavioral ToM tasks (tasks with low-verbal demands and standard ToM tasks). Receptive language in both samples and nonverbal intelligence in ASD sample were also assessed. Analyses revealed high internal consistency for the CSUS in both samples. As expected, the CSUS correlated with performance on behavioral ToM tasks, receptive language, and nonverbal intelligence. The CSUS continued to be significantly associated with performance on behavioral ToM tasks after controlling for receptive language and nonverbal intelligence in ASD sample, and controlling for age and receptive language in HI sample. These results demonstrate that the CSUS is a reliable and valid tool in measuring ToM among children and adolescents with ASD and those with HI in Turkey.