The use of the Social Cognitive Skills Test with children with autistic spectrum disorders

With increased diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) and the wide range of ability within this diagnosis, appropriate and accurate appraisal of specific ability are necessary to increase understanding of behaviour and inform effective intervention. The Social Cognitive Skills Test (SCST) focuses on the assessment of social reasoning skills. The present study investigated whether the SCST can usefully measure social reasoning ability in children with ASD. Eight children with ASD and eight typically developing children aged 5-13 years, who were matched on verbal comprehension, block design score and gender, took part in this pilot study. A decreasing trend in scores as the complexity of social cognitive skills increased was noted together with a significant difference between the two groups on three out of four social cognitive levels. This pilot study suggests the applicability of the SCST for use with children with ASD to assess social reasoning abilities.