ADHD Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about ADHD, including details on attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, drugs, treatment, symptoms.

A psychometric evaluation of the social skills rating system in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Van der Oord S, Van der Meulen EM, Prins PJ, Oosterlaan J, Buitelaar JK, Emmelkamp PM

Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. s.vanderood@uva.nl

The social skills rating system (SSRS) was developed to assess social skills of children, as observed by multiple raters (teacher, parent, child). Studies of the SSRS have been conducted with handicapped, mentally retarded and learning disabled children. No studies have reported the psychometric properties of the SSRS in a clinical ADHD sample. This is important, because deficient social functioning is associated with ADHD. The present study assesses the psychometric properties of the teacher, parent and child versions of the SSRS in children with ADHD (n = 123), and normal controls (n = 239). Also, the social skills of children with ADHD, as rated on the SSRS were examined. Results support the factor structure and internal consistency of the original SSRS-teacher version. Moreover, support was found for 3 out of 4 scales of the SSRS-parent version. The factor structure of the SSRS-child version could not be replicated. An explanatory factor analysis on the SSRS-child version yielded two factors. Evidence was found for discriminative ability of the SSRS between normal controls and children with ADHD. Finally, informant agreement between raters was found to be poor.

Published 13 May 2005 in Behav Res Ther, 43(6): 733-46.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2004-2008 ADHD Research Today. All Rights Reserved.