Matson Evaluation of Social Skills with Youngsters-II

Matson Evaluation of cordial Skills with Youngsters-IIThe Matson Evaluation of Social Skills with Youngsters-II (mussy-II) and Its Adaptation for Iranian Children and Adolescents with Intellectual DisabilityBakhtiyar Karami, Mojtaba Gashool, Shoaib Ghasemi, Hamid Alizadeh gypThe aim of the present study was to evaluate the psychometric properties and factor structure of the Matson Evaluation of Social Skills with Youngsters-II (MESSY-II)in a community population in Iran. The Iranian mutant of the MESSY-II was administered by interviewing care staff of either children and adolescents (n = 355) with administratively defined intellectual disabilities (IDs) lifetime in Tehran,Esfahan, Karaj Kordistan. Confirmatory factor abstract supported the unidimensionality of the subscales as hygienic as the proposed two factor structure of the reliable MESSY-II. The present study demonstrates that the three subscales are highly similar constructs across different language and ethnical sett ings, and that the MESSY-II is applicable in research on populations with varying mental functioning, diagnoses, ages, and living arrangements.Keywords Social skills, Assessment, MESSY, Rating scale, component part structureIntroductionThe development of companionable skills is an big carry through in young childhood and adolescence. Deficits present in childhood that are left undetected and/or untreated can lead to increase problems into adulthood (Greene et al., 1999). In addition, impairments in social skills may be related to larger problems such as developmental disability, attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression, anxiety, antisocial behavior, and former(a) mental health problems (Davis et al., 2011 Lugnegard, H in allenback, Gillberg, 2011 Mahan Matson, 2011 Matson Wilkins, 2009 Worley Matson, 2011). Social skills deficits may occur as a result of these disorders or as part of the disorders themselves. As a result, realization of social weaknesse s is essential for providing treatment and improving prognosis and quality of life. Identifying social strengths is also important for treatment and can guide clinicians to use assets that the child already possesses to help improve the areas of deficit.The appreciatement and training of social and adaptive skills is important for a number of reasons. First, social and adaptive skills deficits can compromise successful intonation from institutional to community living (Jacobson Schwartz, 1991 Doll, 1953). Second, deficits in these areas may contribute to the etiology of psychiatric disorders and behavioral problems (Borthwick-Duffy Eyman, 1990 Matson Sevin, 1994). Finally, social and adaptive deficits often persist in living areas where the philosophy of care consists of passive learning rather than active treatment (Matson Hammer, 1996).The MESSY (Matson, 1988) was developed in 1983 for assessing the social skill deficits of children aged 4 to 18. The original normative sampl e at the time was establish on 744 typically developing children in Northern Illinois (Matson, Rotatori, Helsel, 1983). The initial items included in the measure were based on a review of standardized measures, including items that addressed social behaviors. Two independent raters then selected the items believed to fit the definition of social skills. These 92 items were then administered to 422 children(self-report form) and 322 teachers (teacher-report form) twice, at a 2-week interval. Test-retest reliableness was conducted and items with Pearsons correlations greater than .50 and .55 for the self- and teacher-report interlingual renditions, respectively, were retained. The results yielded 62 items for the self-report form and 64 items for the teacher-report form. Original tests of reliability and validity indicated strong internal torso and test-retest reliability andadequat merging(prenominal) validity (Matson et al., 1983).The MESSY has been translated into nine new(pr enominal) languages and researched internationally Spanish (Mendez, Hildalgo, Ingles, 2002), Chinese (Chou, 1997), Japanese (Matson Ollendick, 1988), Dutch (Prins, 1997), Hindi (Sharma, Sigafoos, Carroll, 2000), Hebrew (Pearlman-Avnion Eviator, 2002), French (Vert, Roeyers, Buysse, 2003), Turkish (Bacanli Erdoan, 2003), and Slovakian (Vasilo (Bacanli Baumartner, 2004). In addition, the MESSY has been researched with various populations, including children with hearing and visual impairments (Matson, Heinze, Helsel, Kapperman, Rotatori, 1986 Matson, Macklin, Helsel, 1985 Raymond Matson, 1989) , intellectual disabilities (Matson Barrett, 1982), anxiety disorders (Strauss, Lease, Kazdin, Dulcan, Last, 1989), depression (Helsel Matson, 1984), bipolar disorder (Goldstein, Miklowitz, Mullen, 2006), and autism spectrum disorders (Matson, Stabinsky-Compton, Sevin, 1991).2222However, there is still no agreement around which factorial structure best explains the data because t he results of former studies showed a different number of factors and different arrangements of items. Thus, the objectives of the present study are to examine the psychometric properties of the MESSY for the first time in an Iranian sample and to compare the results to foregoing studies with the MESSY in other socio-cultural contexts.1. Method1.1. ParticipantsThirty hundred and fifty basketball team 355 (223 male, 132 female) participants were recruited from undergraduate psychology courses. Their ages ranged from 3 to 26 years, with a mean age of 11.34 years (SD = 3.87). According to clinical practice in Iran, the participants were classified into having a around the bend (40.8%), moderate (47.0%), severe (11.3%), or profound (0.8%) level of mental retardation. The most frequent diagnoses were Downs syndrome (53.8%), autism (20.8%), mentally retarded (16.9%), and 8.5% of the individuals were reported to have other disorders.1.2. MeasuresMatson Evaluation of Social Skills with Yo ungsters-II (MESSY-II Matson et al., 2010). The MESSY-II is a social skills measure for a broad range of children, ages 216, based on observations of both appropriate and inappropriate social behaviors. This measure is a renormed strain of the original MESSY, which was designed to assess social skills in children ages 418 (Matson, Rotatori, et al., 1983). The original scale had two different forms a self-report form and give out up/teacher report form consisting of 62 and 64 items, respectively. At present, the MESSY-II only has one form, which is a parent/caregiver report form. During the renorming process it was decided that social skills would best be examined through parent/caregiver report as opposed to self- report due to difficulties with poor insight in the populations frequently administered the MESSY. Also, since the measuresutility has largely been clinic and community focused, there is a decreased need for a teacher report form. The MESSY-II has 64 items equal to the original MESSY parent/teacher report form, which are each rated on a Likert-type rating scale from 1 (notat all) to 5 (very much). Recent studies indicate that the scale has strong psychometric properties including internal consistency, and convergent and divergent validity (Matson et al., 2010). Although the original MESSY parent/teacher report form yielded a two factor structure (i.e., wrong Assertiveness/Impulsiveness scale and Appropriate Social Skills scale), the factor structure of the MESSY-II has further to be established.1.3. ProceduresThe participants for this investigation were recruited throughout the children adolescents who enrolled in special children schools. We first select 4 state Tehran, Esfahan, Alborz Kordistan randomly and then separate a list of exceptional children schools in this 4 state. After permission from authorities (Misinstry of Education in each city), the head teachers were contacted in order to coordinate the data collection processes. Then, afterward training the head teacher about MESSY-II in an agreed date teachers were asked to complete a paper and pencile version of the final draft of the Iranian version of MESSY-II for each student while one of us (AMo) was present in the agreed school for any possible help or inquiries. Data stash away in about 1 month.1.4. Data AnalysisIn order to determine the factor structure of the MESSY-II, an exploratory factor analysis with Principle axis vertebra factoring was used on the 64 items of the MESSY-II. Given the likelihood of correlations among the underlying constructs of the factors, an oblique promax rotation was used (brown, 2006). The optimal factor structure was determined via exam of the scree plot, and comprehensibility of factors (zwick velicer, 1986). Items with factor loadings greater than .30 were retained for each factor (kline, 2000). Internal consistency of the factors was examined using Cronbachs alpha (Cronbach, 1951) and the 0.70 criterion for adequate reliability (Nunnally Bernstein, 1994).2. ResultsExploratory factor analysis yielded a two-factor solution for the MESSY-II. The total variance accounted for by the two- factor model was 41.43%. Inappropriate Assertiveness/Impulsiveness factor accounted for 29.37% of the variance. Appropriate Social Skills factor accounted for 12.6% percent of the variance. The correlation between two factors was moderate r= .410. Two items (i.e., item 20 Is afraid to speak to stack and item 46 Feels lonely) did not meet the criteria of .30, and were removed from the measure. Table 1 lists the factors and corresponding items.Next, internal consistency was examined for the two factors of the MESSY-II using Chrobachs alpha. Inappropriate Assertiveness/Impulsiveness had an internal consistency of .950 (M=70.58 SD=24.87), and Appropriate Social Skills had an internal consistency of .952 (M=75.64 SD=24.91). corrected Item-total correlations were considered for each of the retained factors to determine if the removal of additional items was warranted due to coefficients below 0.30 (Field, 2005). Item total correlations of Inappropriate Assertiveness/Impulsiveness subscale ranged from 0.42 (item 15) to 0.70 (item 9, 17, and 52). item total correlations of Appropriate Social Skills subscale ranged from 0.37 (item 19) to 0.77 (item 41).since no item on any of the scales had a correlation of less than .30 and, therefore, all items were retained pursual the two items that had been removed during the exploratory factor analysis.3. DiscussionImpairments in social skills are a defining aspect of developmental disabilities, and deficits in these skills can come to the ability of children, adolescents, and adults to progress in other areas across the spectrum of development. Furthermore, social deficits are major risk factors for challenging behaviors (Farmer Aman, 2009 Tenneij, Didden, Stolker, Koot, 2009), and similarly, they can compound problems of psychopathology (Brim, Townsend, D eQuinzio, Poulson, 2009 Matson, Dempsey, Rivet, 2009 Niklasson, Rasmussen, O skarsdo ttir, Gillberg, 2009 Rose, Bramham, Young, Paliokostas, Xenitidis, 2009). For these and other reasons, the development of measures of social skills is very important (Matson Boisjoli, 2009a, 2009b Matson Dempsey, 2009 van den Hazel, Didden, Korzilius, 2009).The purpose of this paper then, was to determine the factor solution of a measure used to assess social skills, the MESSY-II in Iranian population (Matson et al., 2010). The original MESSY was initially developed nearly three decades ago, but recently renormed (see Matson et al., 2010). Exploratory factor analysis of the MESSY-II yielded a three factor solution. Two of the factors were consistent with inappropriate social skills while the other consisted of items relating to appropriate and adaptive social skills.The data were collected as part of an epidemiological research program including all children adolescents with administratively defined ID living in 4 state Tehran, Esfahan, Alborz Kordistan. Overall, the results showed that the internal consistency of the Iranian MESSY-II is in line with previous research on the MESSY-II and that the proposed two-factor model had an acceptable fit.This study showed satisfactory cultural adaptation, reliability, content validity and factor structure for the Iranian version of MESSY-II. However, considering the study limitations, the findings should not be generalized. In general this instrument will be a valuable teacher/parent reported measure for the rating of social skills (Inappropriate Assertiveness/Impulsiveness Appropriate Social Skills) among children adolescents with mental retardation in Iran and other Persian-speaking countries.Table 1 Factor structure of the MESSY-IIItem no.Factor 1 Inappropriate Assertiveness/ImpulsivenessFactor 2 Appropriate Social Skills1Makes others laugh.4842Threatens people or acts like a prance.7703Becomes angry easily.6884Is bossy (tells people what to do instead of asking).5415Gripes or complains often.6386Speaks (breaks in) when someone else is speaking.7027Takes or uses things that are not his/hers without permissionwithout permission.5358Brags about self.5769Slaps or hits when angry.75311Gives other children dirty looks.67712Feels angry or greedy when someone else does well.61513Picks out other Childrens faults/mistakes.56115Breaks promises.46416Lies to get what he/she wants.53717Lies to get what he/she wants.73421Hurts others feelings on purpose.58722Is a sore loser.60123Makes fun of others.61624Blames others for own problems.61929Is stubborn.70332Thinks people are picking on him/her when they are not.51735Makes sounds that bother others.54836Brags too much when he/she wins.52638Speaks too forte.53243Always thinks something bad is going to happen.42748Gets upset when he/she has to wait for things.45052Gets in fights a lot.73653Is jealous of other people.46757Stays with others too long (wears out welcom e).52958Explains things more than necessary.37660Hurts others to get what he/she wants.74662Thinks that loving is everything.48363Hurts others feelings when teasing them.75964Wants to get even with someone who hurts him/her.71710Helps a friend who is hurt.67214Always wants to be first.58518Walks up and initiatesconversation.4709Slaps or hits when angry.34025Sticks up for friends.60826Looks at people when they are speaking.75927Thinks he/she knows it all.316.493a28Smiles at people he/she knows.58630Acts as if he/she better than others.67531Shows feelings.65933Thinks good things are going to happen.47434Works well on a team.83437Takes care of others property as if it were his/her own.76739Calls people by their names.60740Asks if he/she can be of help.81141Feels good if he/she helps others.83942Defends self.59844Tries to be better than everyone else.74145Asks questions when talking with others.67147Feels sorry when he/she hurts others.58949Likes to be the leader.381.468 a50Joins in ga mes with other children.76751Plays by the rules of a game.81254Does pure things for others who are nice to him/her-.362.712 a55Tries to get others to do what he/she wants.354.368 a56Asks others how they are, what they have been doing, etc..57959Is friendly to new people he/she meets.71361Talks a lot about problems or worries.312.433 aReferencesKline, P. 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