Abstract

Social skills are defined as interpersonal responses that allow the child to adapt to the environment through verbal and nonverbal communication (Matson, Matson, & Rivet, 2007). These skills encompass communication, engagement, play, friendship and emotion recognition (Locke, Kasari, & Wood, 2014). Social skills deficits are a core feature of the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) (Stella, Mundy, & Tuchman, 1999). The social impairments in individuals with ASD are diverse and involve deficits in maintaining eye contact (Willemsen-Swinkels, Buitelaar, Weijnen, & van Engeland, 1998), in social interaction's initiation (Matson, Sevin, Fridley, & Love, 1990) and in social emotional reciprocity. Due to the contribution of social skills to children's development and adaptation, it is necessary to evaluate these skills in a comprehensive way. Hence, the goal of this study was to examine a new measure that assess social skills in children with ASD using the Social Skills Q-Sort (SSQ). Although there is one study that examined this measure, in this study the participants diagnoses were not confirmed using the gold-standard assessments of Autism.

In order to evaluate the social skills of children with ASD through a new measure, the first and basic phase is to examine the associations between this measure and the reliable and valid diagnoses measures. For this reason, this study examined the associations between the SSQ and four ASD's core characteristics: symptoms severity, social communication, adaptive behavior and cognitive ability.

The study's hypotheses were: 1. a negative correlation will be found between symptoms severity and social skills. 2. a positive correlation will be found between social communication and social skills. 3. a positive correlation will be found between adaptive behavior and social skills. 4. a positive correlation will be found between cognitive ability and social skills. The participants in this study were 45 boys between the ages 3 and 6. The children's social skills were evaluated through behavioral observations and coded by observers that filled the Social Skills Q-Sort (SSQ; Locke, Kretzmann, & Kasari, 2008), and through the teacher's report on the SSQ. Additionally, the participants were diagnosed using: Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS; Lord et al., 2000), Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ; Rutter, Bailey, & Lord, 2003), Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales (VABSII; Sparrow, Balla, & Ciccheti, 2005) and Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI-III; Wechsler, 2002) or Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL; Mullen, 1995).

The first hypothesis was supported, it found that as the symptom severity is higher, the social skills are more deficient. The second hypothesis was also supported, it found that as the social communication is more impaired, the social skills are more deficient. The third hypothesis was supports as well, it found that as the adaptive behavior is higher, the social skills are higher. The forth hypothesis was also supported, it found that as the cognitive ability is higher, the social skills are higher.

Those hypotheses were confirmed accordingly the behavioral observation as well as the teacher's report. Therefore, the findings of the current study indicate significant expansion of the SSQ and increase its efficiency as social skills evaluation measure among children with ASD. The SSQ has the potential to help at identification of specific areas of social deficits and at implementation of social skills interventions.