Social skills assessment in young children with autism: a comparison evaluation of the SSRS and PKBS.
SSRS and PKBS are fine screeners but poor progress monitors for preschoolers with ASD.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team compared two parent checklists for preschoolers with autism. One was the Social Skills Rating System (SSRS). The other was the Preschool and Kindergarten Behavior Scales (PKBS).
They wanted to know if both tools give steady scores and if they measure the same thing. Kids were already diagnosed with ASD. No teaching happened; this was a pure measurement study.
What they found
Both checklists showed solid reliability. Scores stayed stable when parents filled them out twice.
The tools also agreed with each other, so they seem to tap the same social domain. Yet the authors warn: the forms may not notice small day-to-day gains from therapy.
How this fits with other research
Major et al. (2017) later tested a newer PKBS-2 in Portugal with more kids and tighter controls. Their stronger numbers update and partly replace the 2011 findings.
Emerson et al. (2013) trimmed the SRS down to 30 items that form one clean scale. Their item-level work backs up the idea that shorter social scales can still be sound.
Grzadzinski et al. (2016) built the BOSCC, a short video code that actually catches change after intervention. Their result fills the gap Hui-Ting et al. flagged: parent checklists alone may miss growth.
Why it matters
Use SSRS or PKBS at intake to get a quick social snapshot. Pair them with a direct code like BOSCC or with classroom data when you need to prove progress. Do not rely only on parent ratings to show your treatment is working.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Impairment in the development of reciprocal social interaction and other social skills is one of the defining characteristics of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). There is a need for assessment tools that will help guide social skills interventions and document outcomes. The purpose of this study was to examine the potential usefulness of two behavior rating scales with young children with ASD in an early childhood program. The results showed that the two social skills measures, the SSRS and PKBS, had adequate psychometric properties in terms of internal consistency, construct validity, convergent validity, and criterion validity with the AEPS, and were found to be predictive of how the tests would function when assessing young children with ASD in a natural setting. However, their usefulness in detecting social skills progress over time or intervention outcomes for young children with ASD may not be satisfactory.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2011 · doi:10.1007/s10803-010-1175-8