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

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

S. Van der Oord(a), E.M. Van der Meulen(b), P.J.M. Prins(a), J. Oosterlaan(c), J.K. Buitelaar(d) and P.M.G. Emmelkamp(a)

Revue : Behaviour Research and Therapy

(a)Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Roeterstraat 15, 1018 WB Amsterdam, The Netherlands
(b)Department of Psychiatry, University of Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
(c)Department of Clinical Neuropsychology, Free University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
(d)Department of Psychiatry, University of Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Received 27 August 2003; revised 6 May 2004; accepted 3 June 2004. Available online 3 August 2004.



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.

Keywords: Social skills; ADHD; Children; SSRS; Factor analysis

Corresponding author. Tel:. +31-20-5256715; fax: +31-20-6391369.

Behaviour Research and Therapy - Volume 43, Issue 6 , June 2005, Pages 733-746

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