Scale of emotional development-Short.
The 200-item SED-S hands you a fast caregiver checklist to profile emotional growth in adults with ID.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Sappok et al. (2016) asked experts to build a short rating scale for emotional growth in adults with intellectual disability.
The team wrote 200 yes-or-no items that cover eight emotion areas and five skill levels.
Caregivers or staff can finish the checklist in about 15 minutes.
What they found
The finished SED-S gives a clear profile of where an adult stands in each emotion domain.
The scale is ready for field testing; no numbers were reported yet.
How this fits with other research
Hong et al. (2021) later gave the same 20-item short form to a large group of children with ID. They found high reliability and strong validity, proving the tool works in kids as well as adults.
Kremkow et al. (2022) added 40 new items so the scale can track teens up to 18 years. Both papers extend the original adult work to younger age bands.
La Malfa et al. (2009) and Nijs et al. (2016) studied an older tool called SAED. They showed emotional growth links tightly with daily living skills. The new SED-S gives you a faster caregiver option, while SAED needs team observation.
Why it matters
You now have a quick, free checklist that maps emotional strengths and gaps in adults with ID. Use it to pick targets for social skills groups, leisure programs, or caregiver training. If you already work with kids or teens, grab the child version or the teen extension and keep one scale family across the lifespan.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Intellectual disability (ID) is often accompanied by delays in emotional development (ED) that may result in challenging behavior. Insight into emotional functioning is crucial for appropriate diagnostic assessment in adults with ID. However, few standardized assessment instruments are available. AIMS: The aim of this study was to develop a short, psychometrically sound instrument for assessing levels of ED in individuals with ID: The Scale of Emotional Development - Short (SED-S), which can be applied to adults. METHODS AND PROCEDURES: The Scale for ED - Revised2 (SED-R2) was taken as a point of departure. In a first step, the validity and observability of the items (N=556) in the SED-R2 were assessed by 30 experts from Germany, Belgium, and The Netherlands. The SED-S was then constituted in a consecutive consensus process, in which items to be included were selected based on their assessments and subsequently rephrased, and in which the structure and method of administering the new scale were agreed upon. OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: The SED-S consists of 200 binary items describing five levels of emotional functioning (reference ages: 0-12 years) within eight domains: Relating to His/Her Own Body, Relating to Significant Others, Dealing with Change - Object Permanence, Differentiating Emotions, Relating to Peers, Engaging with the Material World, Communicating with Others, and Regulating Affect. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: The SED-S offers an empirical-based, practical tool to assessing ED in adults with ID. Further research will be needed to meet the requirements of a standardized diagnostic instrument.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2016 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2016.08.019