Social Anxiety Scale for Children-Revised: what is it?

Social anxiety is an anxiety disorder that can appear at any age., although more typically it does so in childhood and adolescence. La Greca and Stone's (1993) Social Anxiety Scale for Children-Revised (SASC-R) assesses social anxiety.

In this article we will learn about the three factors into which the authors of the Scale divide social anxiety. We will explain the characteristics of this instrument, as well as its advantages, its format and the results of some research (showing how to interpret the results of the Scale).

• "The 7 types of anxiety (characteristics, causes and symptoms)"

Social Anxiety Scale for Children-Revised: what is it?

The The Social Anxiety Scale for Children-Revised (SASC-R) by La Greca and Stone (1993), is a tool that assesses social anxiety in children between 7 and 12 years of age.. It is a revised version of the SASC (La Greca, Dandes, Wick, Shaw, & Stone, 1988). The SASC, for its part, was based on two scales by Watson and Friend (1969): “Fear of Negative Evaluation” (FNE) and “Social Advoidance and Distress” (SAD).

La Greca and Stone revised the previous scale (SASC; Social Anxiety Scale for Children) because they saw some weaknesses. New items were added to the scale, specifically items referring to social avoidance and generalized distress. Thus, these authors divided social situations into two groups: new and generalized. They did so because they saw that this distinction had important clinical connotations.

Thus, the main differences between the Social Anxiety Scale for Children-Revised and its version (SASC), are the incorporation of a third factor and the increase in the number of items (which went from 10 to 18).

What does it evaluate?

Specifically, the Social Anxiety Scale for Children-Revised assesses social anxiety related to functioning with peers.

This anxiety is divided into three factors or dimensions that we will see later in the article, and which are: 1. fear of negative evaluation by peers (FNE); 2. anxiety and social avoidance in new situations or with unknown people (SAD-N); and 3. anxiety and social avoidance towards people in general, whether they are peers, acquaintances or strangers.

Social anxiety in children and adolescents

social anxiety or social phobia, is classified as an anxiety disorder in the DSM-5 (Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders). This translates into intense fear or anxiety in the face of social interactions or other social situations (public speaking, being at a party, meeting people, etc.).

It is an anxiety disorder that can appear both in childhood and in adulthood; however, it is in adolescence where it appears more frequently. This is so because it is an age where social relationships and the fact of "having friends" are of vital importance, both for the child and for the adolescent; In addition, his personality is being formed, largely in relation to these friendships.

This causes the child or adolescent to feel more pressure to be liked, as well as pressure to be included in social groups, invited to parties, etc. As we have seen, the Social Anxiety Scale for Children-Revised is in charge of evaluating said anxiety.

Scale Characteristics

The scale format is a 3-point Likert-type format.. Let's remember that the Likert format is a format created by the psychologist Rensis Likert, in which the answers are scored in a range of values ​​(for example "little", "normal" or "a lot").

However, although in the Spanish version of the SASC-R, the range of scores oscillates between 1 and 3 (points), the authors of the Scale also used the range of 1 to 5 points.

On the other hand, the Social Anxiety Scale for Children-Revised is made up of 22 items; of these 22, but only 18 are taken into account.

Scale factors: social anxiety

Studies conducted on the Social Anxiety Scale for children-Revised (specifically, various factor analyzes were conducted) indicated that social anxiety in this age group (childhood) can be grouped according to three factors.

It is worth mentioning that these three factors or dimensions have good levels of internal consistency. The three factors are:

1. Fear of negative evaluations

This fear appears in relation to the negative evaluation of peers, that is, of children of the same age. In the Social Anxiety Scale for Children-Revised, this factor receives the acronym FNE (“Fear of Negative Evaluations”).

2. social avoidance

Social avoidance occurs in relation to generalized (non-specific) social situations. This social avoidance also translates into social "distress", and its acronym (SAD-G) corresponds to "Social Avoidance and Distress-General".

3. Anguish in new situations

The anguish appears before the new situations related to situations with new companions. Thus, this social “distress” refers to specific and new situations with peers (in English, “Social Avoidance and Distress-Specific to NewPeers”; SAD-New or SAD-N).

Advantages

As positive features, We found the Children's Social Anxiety Scale-Revised to be a short and easy-to-administer scale. Furthermore, its psychometric properties are good..

It consists of a self-report instrument; in fact, these are the few tools that exist in a self-report format to assess social anxiety in children and adolescents.

This scale makes it possible to evaluate different dimensions of anxiety and social fear in childhood, either at a clinical or non-clinical level.

Research

An important study carried out by Sandín et. al (1999) analyzed the psychometric characteristics of the Social Anxiety Scale for Children-Revised. The reliability analyzes showed that the SASC-R had a good level of reliability. (this includes: Cronbach's alpha, homogeneity index, item-scale correlation and coefficient of determination).

On the other hand, the three mentioned factors of the scale also had good levels of reliability.

Interpretation of your results

Another study carried out with the Social Anxiety Scale for Children-Revised reviewed the relationships between the anxiety levels of the different subscales (factors) of the Scale, and the social and emotional functioning of the children.

The results showed that the first factor, fear of negative evaluation, was related to lower self-esteem.. In addition, children who scored high on this factor had a perception of low social acceptance and interacted more negatively with their peers.

The third factor of the Social Anxiety Scale for Children-Revised, fear or distress in new situations, was related to children who also perceived low social acceptance by others, as well as with a higher number of interactions negative.

Finally, it was seen that children with higher scores on the SASC-R had a greater deterioration in their overall social functioning. This translated into poorer social skills, fewer social relationships, and a perception of little social acceptance by others.

Bibliographic references:

• La Greca, A.M., and Stone, W.L. (1993). Social Anxiety Scale for Children-Revised: Factor structure and concurrent validity. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 22: 17-27.
• Sandín, B., Chorot, P., Valiente, R.M., Santed, M.A. and Sánchez-Arribas, C. (1999). Factor structure of the Social Anxiety Scale for Children-Revised (SASC-R). Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Psychology 1999, 4(2): 105-113.
• Vincent, M.C. (2016). Study on Child Social Anxiety. University of Jaén, Faculty of Humanities and Educational Sciences.