The Social Aptitudes Scale: an initial validation

Background Poor social skills are associated with a range of child and adolescent psychiatric disorders, with deficits being particularly marked in autistic spectrum disorders (ASDs). Here, we validate a brief measure of social aptitudes where low scores are designed to index a substantially raised risk of ASDs. Method Parents of a national community sample of 7,977 British 5–16 year olds completed the Social Aptitudes Scale (SAS) as well as a general questionnaire measure of psychopathology, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Psychiatric diagnoses were assigned by clinical raters on the basis of detailed multi-informant information. Results All ten items of the SAS loaded onto a single latent factor, with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.88. Correlations between the SAS and the SDQ were only modest, suggesting that the SAS measures different attributes to the SDQ. The SAS was significantly better than the SDQ at identifying ASDs. Conclusion Children and adolescents with low SAS scores are at increased risk of mental health problems, particularly ASDs.