Social Anxiety Scale for Children-Revised: what does it consist of?

This tool used in clinical psychology evaluates the degree of anxiety in children.

Social anxiety is an anxiety disorder that can appear at any age, although more typically in childhood and adolescence.although most typically in childhood and adolescence. The Social Anxiety Scale for Children-Revised (SASC-R) by La Greca and Stone (1993) assesses such 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 (which show 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 La Greca and Stone's (1993) Social Anxiety Scale for Children-Revised (SASC-R) is a tool that assesses social anxiety in children between the ages of 7 and 12.. It is a revised version of the SASC (La Greca, Dandes, Wick, Shaw, & Stone, 1988). The SASC 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. They added new items 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 observed that this distinction had important clinical connotations.

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

What does it assess?

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, which are: 1. fear of negative evaluation by peers (FNE); 2. anxiety and social avoidance in novel situations or before unfamiliar people (SAD-N); and 3. anxiety and social avoidance before 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 results in intense fear or anxiety in social interactions or other social situations (public speaking, being at a party, meeting people, etc.).

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

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

Characteristics of the Scale

The format of the scale is a 3-point Likert-type format.. Recall that the Likert format is a format created by the psychologist Rensis Likert, in which responses are scored in a range of values (e.g. "a 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 consists of 22 items; of these 22, however, only 18 are taken into account.

Scale factors: social anxiety

The studies conducted on the Social Anxiety Scale for Children-Revised (specifically, several factor analyses were performed) 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, 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 (not specific) social situations. This social avoidance also translates into social distress, and its acronym (SAD-G) stands for Social Avoidance and Distress-General.

3. Distress in new situations

Distress appears in new situations related to situations with new peers. Thus, this social distress refers to specific and new situations with peers (Social Avoidance and Distress-Specific to NewPeers; SAD-New or SAD-N).

Advantages

As positive features, we found that the Social Anxiety Scale for Children-Revised is a brief scale that is easy to administer. In addition, its psychometric properties are good.

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

This scale allows the assessment of different dimensions of anxiety and social fear in childhood, both at clinical and non-clinical levels.

Research

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

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

Interpretation of its results

Another study conducted 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 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 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 a higher number of negative interactions.

Finally, it was seen that children with higher SASC-R scores had a greater deterioration in their global social functioning. This translated into poorer social skills, fewer social relationships, and a perception of poor 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.
• Vicente, M.C. (2016). Study on Childhood Social Anxiety. University of Jaén, Faculty of Humanities and Educational Sciences.