Dispositivos electrónicos inteligentes

Measurement materials included in this enquiry were identified through the review of commonly used techniques in Chapter 4.

7.3.1 Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)

The SDQ (Goodman, 1997) provides report data on children’s behaviour. It is a behavioural screening questionnaire chosen to be included because of its relevance to the project’s

research domain (behaviour) and applicability to the research population (it may be used with children aged 4–16 years). As was presented in Chapter 4, the SDQ has good reliability and validity, with an internal consistency of .73, an inter-rater correlation mean of 0.34, and test–

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retest stability mean score of 0.62. High SDQ scores above the 90th percentile that represent behaviour difficulties are strong predictors of children receiving an independent clinical diagnosis (Goodman, 2001). The SDQ was employed as a means of gathering information about each child’s behaviour within a school context; therefore, it was completed by teachers to maintain context relevance to where the children were assessed on their communicative interactions (within school with a peer). It measures behaviour within the domains of

emotional symptoms, conduct problems, hyperactivity/inattention, peer relationship problems, and pro-social behaviours. Scores are categorised into ‘Normal’ ‘Borderline’ or ‘Abnormal’ in relation to their severity. ‘Normal’ indicates behaviour is within the normal range and is unlikely to be clinically significant. ‘Borderline’ indicates difficulties are slightly raised and may reflect clinically significant problems. ‘Abnormal’ indicates a high substantial risk of clinically significant problems. Table 11 displays the cut-off criteria for SDQ scores in each behaviour domain indicating categorical severity.

SDQ Domain Normal Borderline Abnormal

Total Difficulties 0–11 12–15 16–40 Emotional Symptoms 0–4 5 06–10 Conduct Problems 0–2 3 04–10 Hyperactivity 0–5 6 07–10 Peer Problems 0–3 4 05–10 Pro-social Behaviour 0–10 5 0–4

Table 11: Criteria for SDQ scores indicating categorical severity of behaviour.

7.3.2 Exploratory research question relating to group differences in reported behaviour

As a consequence of the child selection criteria presented above (p. 91), it was expected that group differences in behaviour would be found and that SDQ data would therefore confirm children’s categorisation into the BESD group. This expectation may be corroborated by examining group differences in severity of behaviour difficulties and reported characteristics of behaviour difficulties.

Exploratory research question: Which characteristics of behaviour are reported as most problematic for children in the BESD group, and therefore show the strongest differences

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between groups? As multiple externalising and internalising behaviour characteristics are

frequently reported in children with BESD (described in Chapters 1 and 2), it may be interesting to explore which of the behaviour subscales of the SDQ are most frequently reported by teachers as problematic in the BESD group.

7.3.3 Children’s Communication Checklist-2 (CCC-2)

The CCC-2 (Bishop, 2003) is a parent or teacher report measure of speech and language developed to identify communication strengths and difficulties in children. As was presented in Chapter 4, the CCC-2 has variable reliability and validity with internal consistency

reliability ratings based on Chronbach’s alpha ranging from .65 to .80 indicating poor to good reliability, and inter-rater reliability (between parents and teachers), measured in terms of Pearson’s intra-class correlation coefficient, ranging from .16 to .52, indicating poor to good agreement between raters (Bishop, 2003). It has been shown to be useful for identifying children who have language impairment or pragmatic impairment and those who may warrant assessment for ASD (Norbury et al., 2004). The CCC-2 was employed in this project as a way of controlling the possible effects language ability might have on outcome measures of

communicative interactions, as well as a means of exploring behaviour and language difficulty associations at the reported level. It was deemed an appropriate measure owing to its relevance to the focus of the current research (language and communication), and its applicability to the target population (children aged between 4 and 9 years).

The checklist contains 70 ‘items’ which are statements about children’s communication. An adult scores each item on the basis of frequency of occurrence, ‘0’ referring to less than once a week, ‘1’ referring to at least twice a week, ‘2’ to once or twice a day, and ‘3’ to several times (more than twice) a day (or always). These 70 items are divided into 10 subscales relating to different areas of language and communication ability. Each subscale has seven items (five address difficulties and two address strengths). Each subscale produces a raw score, which is then converted into a standard score. The subscales are divided into related areas of language and communication. Subscales, examples of subscale items and their categories are displayed in Table 12.

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Subscale Description Example Area addressed

A: Speech Articulation, intelligibility, fluency Pronounces words in a babyish way… Form, content (articulation, phonology, structure, vocabulary and discourse) B: Syntax Ability to produce

grammatically correct utterances using

Gets mixed up between ‘he’ and ‘she’…

C: Semantics The meaning of words, expression of meaning

Makes false starts and gropes for words… D: Coherence Making sense in a

conversation

Talks clearly about what s/he plans to do in the future… E: Initiation Appropriate initiations,

starting topics about reciprocal interests, talking too much

Talks repetitively about things that no- one is interested in…

Pragmatics

F: Scripted Language

Use of learned language or phrases, unusual prosody

Says things s/he does not fully

understand… G: Context Understanding social

rules of conversation including humour, sarcasm, politeness

Misses the point of jokes or puns…

H: Non-verbal communication

Understanding and use of facial and body gestures in communication

Does not look at the person s/he is talking to…

I: Social Relations

Social relationships with others

Is left out of joint activities by other children…

Behaviours commonly impaired in children with ASD

J: Interests Specific, restricted interests the child has

Talks about lists of things s/he has memorised…

Table 12: CCC-2 subscales, examples of subscale items and their associated language/communication domain.

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The checklist provides two main composite scores; General Communication Composite (GCC) (an indication of overall language ability) and Social Interaction Deviance (SIDC) (indicating nature of impairment). SIDC score relates to children who have a GCC score below 55, which indicates marked communication impairment. A negative SIDC score shows the child has disproportionate social and pragmatic difficulties in relation to structural

language ability (defined in Ch. 1, p. 4). A SIDC above zero indicates the child has difficulty with structural aspects of language. It is recommended that SIDC scores are only considered alongside GCC scores below 55. Alongside these composite scores, the subscale scores may be grouped to report upon language form and content, ‘Structural’ language characteristics (Scales A–D), ‘Pragmatic’ language (scales E–H) and ‘Social Relations and Interests’ (scales I and J). The assessment also provides percentile scores for comparison to other children. The CCC-2 has normative data (Bishop, 2003) which provides means and standard deviations for each subscale and composite scale for comparison to the current sample. Table 13 displays these normative values.

CCC-2 Domain UK Normative Mean Standard Deviation

General Communication Composite (GCC) 80 24 Pragmatic Composite 36.3 9.5 Structural Composite 39.9 9.53 All Subscales 10 3

Table 13: CCC-2 normative mean and standard deviation scores (Bishop, 2003).