The child and adolescent social perception measure

Tests currently available for measuring children's sensitivity to nonverbal aspects of communication have been criticized on methodological and conceptual grounds. The Child and Adolescent Social Perception Measure (CASP) was developed to meet the need for a clinically useful measure which examines social perception within a semi-naturalistic context. The CASP consists of 10 videotaped scenes, each of which lasts 19–40 seconds. The verbal content was removed through electronic filtering so that the ability to receive and interpret nonverbal social cues could be measured without bias from verbal cues. Children are shown the scenes and then questioned about the emotions portrayed. Based on standardization with 212 children and adolescents ages 6 to 15 years old, reliability (interrater, test-retest, internal consistency) and initial validity information are reported.Portions of this paper have been presented at the Congress of the World Federation of Occupational Therapists, London, England, 1994, and at the joint conference of the Canadian and American Occupational Therapists, Boston, 1994.We acknowledge funding from the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital Research Grants Program. We thank each of the actors and actresses who generously volunteered their time to produce the videotape; the students and teachers in the schools who participated in the collection of the normative data; and the research assistants who worked many hard hours to make this all possible (Janet L. Smith, Kara Ryan, Dixie McLean, Kate Murie, Taslim Pardhan).