Hughes, C., Lorden, S. W., Scott, S. V., Hwang, B., Derer, K. R., Rodi, M. S., Pitkin, S. E., & Godshall, J. C. (1998).
Identification and validation of critical conversational social skills.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis,
31, 431-446.
In this study, we used a four-step social validation process to
identify and validate critical skill components that constitute
high school students' conversational behavior. The four steps
were nominating target behaviors, establishing a normative range
of performance, manipulating simulations of behavioral
dimensions, and comparing ratings of judges to levels of
performance on those behavioral dimensions. Multiple measures,
both quantitative and qualitative, suggested that the rate and
percentage of time initiating and responding verbally, the
percentage of time attending, and the percentage of time not
engaging in distracting motor behavior related to favorable
ratings by a wide variety of 60 judges. Findings are discussed in
relation to the utility of the multistep social validation
process and the identification of critical social skill
components as targets of interventions.
DESCRIPTORS: social validation, high school students,mental
retardation, conversational social skills