TY - JOUR
T1 - Psychometrics of the pragmatic rating scale for school-age children with a range of linguistic and social communication skills
AU - Dillon, Emily
AU - Holingue, Calliope
AU - Herman, Dana
AU - Landa, Rebecca J.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was funded by Grant MH59630 from the National Institute of Mental Health (R. J. Landa, principal investigator). We thank PRS-SA raters Melissa Le Gette, Hillary Stalknecht, Madiha Tasheen, and Sasha McKenzie for data support, the numerous research clinicians who conducted the comprehensive assessments, and the superb research assistants who supported data acquisition. Most importantly, we thank the participants and their families, and the National Institutes of Health for funding, making this study possible.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
PY - 2021/9
Y1 - 2021/9
N2 - Purpose: Social communication or pragmatic skills are continuously distributed in the general population. Impairment in these skills is associated with two clinical disorders, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and social (pragmatic) communication disorder. Such impairment can impact a child’s peer acceptance, school performance, and current and later mental health. Valid, reliable, examiner-rated observational measures of social communication from a semistructured language sample are needed to detect social communication impairment. We evaluated the psychometrics of an examiner-rated measure of social (pragmatic) communication, the Pragmatic Rating Scale– School Age (PRS-SA). Method: The analytic sample consisted of 130 children, ages 7–12 years, from five mutually exclusive groups: ASD (n = 25), language concern (LC; n = 5), ASD + LC (n = 10), social communication impairment only (n = 22), and typically developing (TD; n = 68). All children received language and autism assessments. The PRS-SA was rated separately using video-recorded communication samples from the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule. Assessment data were employed to evaluate the psychometrics of the PRS-SA. Analysis of covariance models were used to assess whether the PRS-SA would detect differences in social communication functioning across the five groups. Results: The PRS-SA demonstrated strong internal reliability, concurrent validity, and interrater reliability. PRS-SA scores were significantly higher in all groups compared to the TD group and differed significantly in most pairwise comparisons; the ASD + LC group had the highest (more atypical) scores. Conclusions: The PRS-SA shows promise as a measure of social communication skills in school-age verbally fluent children with a range of social and language abilities. More research is needed with a larger sample, including a wider age range and geographical diversity, to replicate findings.
AB - Purpose: Social communication or pragmatic skills are continuously distributed in the general population. Impairment in these skills is associated with two clinical disorders, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and social (pragmatic) communication disorder. Such impairment can impact a child’s peer acceptance, school performance, and current and later mental health. Valid, reliable, examiner-rated observational measures of social communication from a semistructured language sample are needed to detect social communication impairment. We evaluated the psychometrics of an examiner-rated measure of social (pragmatic) communication, the Pragmatic Rating Scale– School Age (PRS-SA). Method: The analytic sample consisted of 130 children, ages 7–12 years, from five mutually exclusive groups: ASD (n = 25), language concern (LC; n = 5), ASD + LC (n = 10), social communication impairment only (n = 22), and typically developing (TD; n = 68). All children received language and autism assessments. The PRS-SA was rated separately using video-recorded communication samples from the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule. Assessment data were employed to evaluate the psychometrics of the PRS-SA. Analysis of covariance models were used to assess whether the PRS-SA would detect differences in social communication functioning across the five groups. Results: The PRS-SA demonstrated strong internal reliability, concurrent validity, and interrater reliability. PRS-SA scores were significantly higher in all groups compared to the TD group and differed significantly in most pairwise comparisons; the ASD + LC group had the highest (more atypical) scores. Conclusions: The PRS-SA shows promise as a measure of social communication skills in school-age verbally fluent children with a range of social and language abilities. More research is needed with a larger sample, including a wider age range and geographical diversity, to replicate findings.
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U2 - 10.1044/2021_JSLHR-20-00753
DO - 10.1044/2021_JSLHR-20-00753
M3 - Article
C2 - 34388006
AN - SCOPUS:85115034783
SN - 1092-4388
VL - 64
SP - 3477
EP - 3488
JO - Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
JF - Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
IS - 9
ER -