Normative data and psychometric properties of a farsi translation of the strange stories test.
The Farsi Strange Stories test is ready for Iranian elementary pupils—expect girls and older kids to score higher.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Shahrivar et al. (2017) translated the Strange Stories test into Farsi.
They gave the stories to Iranian elementary pupils with no diagnosis.
The team checked if scores stayed the same when kids took the test twice.
What they found
The Farsi version held together well; items agreed with each other.
Girls and older pupils scored higher on mind-reading questions.
Boys and younger pupils needed more support to pass the items.
How this fits with other research
Tehrani-Doost et al. (2020) did the same job for the SRS-2 in Iranian classrooms.
Both papers now give you Farsi tools to spot social gaps early.
Vukovic et al. (2010) worked with Serbian kids and found language delays.
Their work reminds us to rule out language issues before we score theory-of-mind errors.
Why it matters
You now have a quick, normed Farsi story set for 9- to 11-year-olds.
Use it to screen theory-of-mind gaps in Iranian clients.
Remember that girls and older pupils will likely score higher, so set your bar there.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: The Strange Stories test is one of the most commonly used tests to evaluate advanced "theory of mind," i.e. attribution of mental states. Normative data and psychometric properties of a new Farsi translation of this test were evaluated in a large community-based sample of Iranian school-aged children. METHODS: Through randomized cluster sampling, 398 children aged 9-11 years studying at 20 elementary schools were recruited from 4 central regions of Tehran, Iran. The mean age of the students was 9.96 years (SD = 0.92), and 51% were girls (n = 202). The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) was completed by parents. The Strange Stories test was completed by all children and repeated for 20% of them after 2-4 weeks to assess the test-retest reliability. FINDINGS: Students in upper grades had higher scores (P < .01); age predicted 2% of variance on the mental state score. Girls had significantly higher mentalizing scores than boys (P = .003). The split-half internal reliability coefficient was good (0.73). The test-retest reliability was fair to good. Item-scale score correlations were all significant (P < .01). CONCLUSION: This new translation of the Strange Stories test is a reliable and valid instrument to evaluate higher level theory of mind abilities in community samples of Farsi speaking children. Autism Res 2017, 10: 1960-1967. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: "Mentalizing" or "theory of mind," the ability to recognize others' mental states, is a key aspect of social understanding. Mentalizing problems are characteristic of some clinical conditions such as autism. The Strange Stories is a test evaluating mentalizing in every day social situations. It was translated into Farsi language and administered to a group of Iranian school-aged children. The instrument was useful in assessing children's mind reading. Older children and girls were better in mentalizing ability.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2017 · doi:10.1002/aur.1844