Multimethod assessment of social-emotional competence in children with selective mutism
department or school: Education, Faculty of
department or school: Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Shumka, Ellen Marie
issued: 2019-11-01T17:58:40Z
issued: 2019
related degree: Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: Selective mutism (SM) is a rare childhood anxiety disorder associated with significant psychosocial impairment. Despite the understanding that social-emotional functioning is essential to mental health and well-being, few studies to date have examined the social-emotional competencies of children with SM. The current study documents the social lives of 31 children aged 4 to 10 years old with SM through a multi-method assessment procedure. Specifically, the social-emotional competence of children with SM was assessed using (1) parent reports obtained in semi-structured interviews, (2) parent and teacher reports of social skills using established rating scales, and (3) multiple, direct measures of emotion recognition abilities using standardized norm-referenced assessments. This is one of the most extensive studies of the social-emotional competence in children with SM to date, and thus, contributes greatly to our understanding of this disorder. Consistent with previous research, parents and teachers in the current study reported that children with SM have “Below Average” social skills. A unique contribution of the present study is the finding that children with SM made more errors labelling the emotions depicted on child and adult faces compared to the normative sample, and tended to make the most errors on angry faces compared to happy faces on child and adult facial stimuli. Further, results from correlational analyses revealed that parent, but not teacher, ratings of poorer social skills were related to more emotion recognition errors, which is the first study to document a relationship between errors at various stages of social-information processing (i.e., encoding/interpreting facial stimuli and social skill problems). Results from the current study indicated that children with SM have problems in various areas of social-emotional competence that extend beyond our previous understanding of the disorder.
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/72145
note: MULTIMETHOD ASSESSMENT OF SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL COMPETENCE IN CHILDREN WITH SELECTIVE MUTISM by Ellen Marie Shumka B.A., The University of Waterloo, 2007 M.A., The University of British Columbia, 2012 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFULLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (School and Applied Child Psychology) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) October 2019 © Ellen Marie Shumka, 2019 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the dissertation entitled: Multimethod assessment of social-emotional competence in children with selective mutism submitted by Ellen Shumka in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in School and Applied Child Psychology Examining Committee: Shelley Hymel, Human Development, Learning and Culture Supervisor Rosalind Catchpole, Mood and Anxiety Disorders Clinic, B.C. Children’s Hospital Supervisory Committee Member Sterett Mercer, Special Education Supervisory Committee Member Pat Mirenda, Special Education University Examiner Eva Oberle, School of Population and Public Health University Examiner iii Abstract Selective mutism (SM) is a rare childhood anxiety disorder associated with significant psychosocial impairment. Despite the understanding that social-emotional functioning is essential to mental health and well-being, few studies to date have examined the social-emotional competencies of children with SM. The current study documents the social lives of 31 children aged 4 to 10 years old with SM through a multi-method assessment procedure. Specifically, the social-emotional competence of children with SM was assessed using (1) parent reports obtained in semi-structured interviews, (2) parent and teacher reports of social skills using established rating scales, and (3) multiple, direct measures of emotion recognition…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2019-11
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0384848
language: eng
degree discipline: School Psychology
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/72145