Turkish Adaptation of Social Responsiveness Scale-2-Preschool Turkish Form: A Reliability and Validity Study

The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric properties as well as to conduct cross-cultural adaptation studies of the Social Responsiveness Scale-2-Preschool Turkish Form (SRS-2-PTF) completed by parents that is used to assess social awareness, social cognition, social communication, social motivation, and restricted interests and repetitive behaviors of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). SRS-2-PTF is a tool which examines social communication skills of children 30 to 54 months age and identifies children with ASD or at risk for ASD during early periods as well as provides information about the severity of ASD. The scale consists of five sub dimensions and 65 items. The parent form of the scale's Turkish adaptation and reliability-validity studies were conducted with 2 to 5-year-old children in Ankara and Istanbul. The scale's construct validity, criterion validity, and reliability were examined. The confirmatory factor analysis, which was conducted as the construct validity study, showed that the fit indices of the scale were acceptable for both two-dimensional and five-dimensional structure, and SRS-2-PTF, which has five sub dimensions and 65 items, is consistent with the construct of the original scale's factor structure. As a criterion validity, sub factors and total score of SRS-2-PTF had significant correlations with "communication," "social interaction," and "stereotypical behaviors" sub scales of Gilliam Autism Rating Scale-2-Turkish Version (GARS-2-TV). As the reliability study, Cronbach Alpha coefficients and item total score correlations were calculated, they showed that the scale had a good reliability. As a result of this study, SRS-2-PTF is a valid and reliable tool in identifying children with ASD and at risk for ASD as well as assessing their social communication behaviors in depth.