THE SOCIAL STRATEGY RATING-SCALE - AN APPROACH TO EVALUATING SOCIAL COMPETENCE

In recent years, professionals in early childhood special education ha ve been concerned with the social competence of young children with di sabilities. Despite wide-spread interest in this topic, the availabili ty of psychometrically sound easy-to-use instruments to measure social competence has been limited. This study provides initial data concern ing the psychometric properties of the Social Strategy Rating Scale. T his scale was developed in order to provide a relatively simple method of measuring social competence in young children with disabilities ac ross multiple contexts. Forty-seven toddlers with disabilities were ob served at four data points over a 16-month period in three different s ocial settings (with mothers, in dyads, and in a group setting). The s cale was found to have relatively high interobserver agreement across items and high internal consistency. In addition, the scale seemed to detect differences that occurred over time and in varying contexts. Fi ndings are discussed in terms of their application in early childhood intervention programs.