Developing a new assessment procedure of social information processing in adolescents within secure residential care.

Researchers built a new questionnaire that maps how detained teens read social cues. They tested 105 youths living in locked residential units in England.

Kids filled out the 28-item SIP scale plus two gold-standard social-cognition tasks. Staff also rated each teen's aggression. The team checked if IQ level changed the scores.

The new scale hung together well; Cronbach’s alpha was 0.84. Factor analysis showed it really taps four social-cognition steps: encode, interpret, goal set, and decide.

Scores correlated in the expected direction with the staff aggression ratings. High-IQ and low-IQ youths answered alike; IQ did not bias the results.

Smit et al. (2019) screened the same secure-care population with the Social Communication Questionnaire. They flagged a large share for possible ASD, while M et al. now show SIP deficits are common even without ASD. Use both tools: one catches autism traits, the other catches social-thinking errors.

de Kuijper et al. (2014) validated a movie-based social-cognition task in Spanish teens with ASD. Their task needs a laptop and 15 minutes; M’s new pencil scale takes five and needs no tech. Pick the movie when you want rich data, pick the questionnaire when you need a quick screen.

Berástegui et al. (2021) found poor agreement between self and proxy reports in youth with ID. M et al. add that detained teens give reliable SIP self-reports regardless of IQ, so you can trust their answers during intake interviews.

You now have a free, four-minute scale that spots social-cognition gaps in detained youth. Add it to your intake packet alongside the SCQ. If SIP scores are high, teach the teen to pause, read facial cues, and generate prosocial goals before acting. The scale is still young, so re-check reliability every few months, but it’s ready for Monday’s session.