15
Needs of people who are deaf or hard of
hearing
Development of a Social Communication
Questionnaire (QSC-ID) for People With
Intellectual Disability in a Deaf Sample:
A Pilot and Feasibility Study
Chantal Weber, Christoph Weber2
, Johannes Fellinger
and Daniel Holzinger
Background: Social communication
(SC) includes the use and interpretation
of verbal and non-verbal messages within
a social context and thus requires more
than knowledge of language. Social
communication skills are essential for
connecting and engaging with others,
and SC deficits are often associated with
emotional and behavioural problems.
There is a lack of feasible instruments for
assessing SC skills in individuals with
intellectual disability (ID).
Methods: A questionnaire on social
communication in adults with ID (QSCID)
comprising 20 Likert-scaled items
was developed and completed on behalf
of participants (n = 52) from three
Austrian therapeutic living communities
for people with ID and deafness by their
living- and working-facility key caregivers.
Results: The preliminary results showed
high construct validity. Correlations were
high between SC and language, social
skills, and severity of autism spectrum
disorder (ASD), moderate between SC
and adaptive skills, and non-verbal
intelligence and, as expected, low
between SC and motor skills. Interrater
reliability was found to be good or at least
acceptable for all items. Total raw scores
were well-distributed over the whole
range-Cut-offs based on the 10th and
20th percentile
are suggested
to identify
atypical and
borderline SC
skills. Caregiver feedback and
completeness of data suggest that the
questionnaire is highly feasible.
Conclusion: Questionnaire on social
communication in adults with ID is an
easy-to-use caregiver-reported
questionnaire for use with individuals
with mild to severe forms of ID. Initial
testing of validity looks promising. Further
validation in populations with typical
hearing is required. Due to substantial
correlations between SC and structural
language skills the calculation of specific
SC cut-offs for different levels of
linguistic skills should be considered
when sufficient data is available.
Keywords: social communication, intellectual
disability, deafness, hearing loss, caregiver
Questionnaire
Check it out on:
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.755993
Front. Psychiatry, 08 December 2021 |
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