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INTERNALIZING/EXTERNALIZING BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS
NATIONAL SURVEY OF CHILD AND ADOLESCENT WELL-BEING
Measure: Social Skills Rating System
Background
The Social Skills Rating System (SSRS) is widely used to measure problem behaviors and other social or emotional behaviors (Gresham & Elliott, 1990). The SSRS was modified for use in the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW) to further define which version of the SSRS was appropriate for administration to children in ambiguous situations (e.g., 5-year-old child who is also attending kindergarten). Three versions of the SSRS were given, based on the age of the child: one for children between the ages of 3 and 5, another for children between the ages of 6 and 10, and a third for children 11 years and older.
The NSCAW was funded and administered by the Administration on Children, Youth, and Families and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The study has been conducted through collaboration between staff at the Research Triangle Institute, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Caliber Associates, and the University of California at Berkeley.
Population Assessed
Teachers and parents were surveyed about children ages 5 to 18. Overall, the two NSCAW sample components are made up of 6,227 children; 5,501 of those children had contact with the child welfare system within the 15-month period beginning in October 1999. At the time of sampling, the children ranged in age from birth to 14 years old; infants, children who have been abused sexually, and children who are receiving services were oversampled. The results of the survey can be generalized to the population that comes in contact with the child welfare system in the United States. Of the children, 1,030 between the ages of 3 and 5 were assessed with the SSRS at Wave 1 and 656 were assessed at Wave 3. For children between the ages of 6 and 10, 1,757 were assessed with the SSRS at Wave 1 and 1,919 were assessed at Wave 3. For those children eleven and older, 1,420 were assessed at Wave 1 and 1,265 were assessed at Wave 3.
The child protective services and long-term foster care sample components were fairly evenly distributed across the various child age categories from birth to age 14. At the time of the Wave 1 interview, just under 30 percent of the children fell under age 2. Another 21.6 percent fell between the ages of 2 and 5. Around 27 percent of the sample of children fell between the ages of six and 10. And 22 percent of the child sample fell between the ages of 11 and 14 at the time of the initial interview.
The racial and ethnic make-up of the combined child sample was diverse. American Indians made up 6.2 percent of the sample; Asian, Hawaiian, or other Pacific Islanders made up 2.4 percent of the sample; 35.7 percent of the sample was African American or Black; 49.6 percent of the sample was White. Across these racial groups, 17.3 percent were classified as being of Hispanic ethnic background. (See survey description for more information on the population.)
Periodicity
Data for the SSRS were collected at Wave 1 between November 15, 1999, and April 30, 2001, and Wave 3, between April 1, 2001, and September 30, 2002. The SSRS is also included in Wave 4 data collection, which should be complete by March 31, 2004.
Subscales/Components
The Problem Behaviors Scale includes externalizing and internalizing subscales.
The Social Skills Scale includes responsibility, cooperation, assertive, self-control subscales.
Procedures for Administration
Computer-assisted personal interviewing was used to administer the age-appropriate versions of the SSRS to parents or current caregivers of children; administration times were generally between 6 and 7 minutes, across collection waves and child age.
Psychometrics/Data Quality
The SSRS has been found to be of high psychometric quality for measuring behaviors for children ages 5 and older. The psychometric information provided below is based on a standardization sample of 4,170 children school-age children, 1,027 parents, and 259 teachers.
The internal consistency ranged from .73-.95
The test-retest reliability ranged from .84-.93 for teacher ratings; .65-.87 for parent ratings; and .68 for student ratings.
Criterion related validity:
Correlations between the social skills scale and the Social Behavior Assessment ranged from -.15 to -.73, with total scale correlations at -.68. The correlation between the Harter Teacher Rating Scale and the social skills scale was .70. The correlation between the social skills scale and the Child Behavior Checklist-Parent Report Form was .58.
Convergent validity:
Teacher-parent ratings of the social skills subscales for preschool-aged children ranged from .16 to .25, with coefficients found to be significant at the .02 level.
Languages Available
The questionnaire module was administered in English and Spanish.
Items Included
Because of copyright issues, actual items need to be sought from the manual or publisher (Gresham & Elliot, 1990).
References and Source Documents
Some of the references listed below were cited in source documents if they were not readily available.
Achenbach, T.M. (1991a). Manual for the child behavior checklist 2–3 and 1991 profile. Burlington: Department of Psychiatry, University of Vermont.
Achenbach, T. (1991b). Manual for the child behavior checklist 4–18 and 1991 profile. Burlington: Department of Psychiatry, University of Vermont.
Achenbach, T.M. (1991c). Manual for the youth self-report and 1991 profile. Burlington: Department of Psychiatry, University of Vermont.
Asher, S., & Wheeler, V. (1985). Children’s loneliness: A comparison of rejected and neglected peer status. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 53(4), 500–505.
Briere, J. (1996). Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children: Professional Manual. Florida: Psychological Assessment Resources, Inc.
Dowd, K., Kinsey, S., Wheeless, S., Thissen, R., Richardson, J., Suresh, R., Mierzwa, F., Biemer, P., Johnson, I., and Lytle, T. (2003, September). National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being: Combined Waves 1–3 data file user’s manual. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect.
Dowd, K., Kinsey, S., Wheeless, S., Thissen, R., Richardson, J., Mierzwa, F., & Biemer, P. (2002, May). National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being: Wave 1 Data File User’s Manual. National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect: Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
Gresham, F.M., & Elliott, S.N. (1990). Social Skills Rating System. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service.
Kovacs, M. (1992). Children’s Depression Inventory. North Tonawanda, NY: Multi-health Systems, Inc.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children, Youth and Families (2001, June). National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being: Local Child Welfare Agency Survey: Report. Washington, D.C. URL: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/abuse_neglect/nscaw/index.html.
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