A brief method for assessing social development: Structure, reliability, stability, and developmental validity of the Interpersonal Competence Scale

The Interpersonal Competence Scale (ICS-T) is a set of brief rating scales for teachers and parents. It consists of 18 items that assess social and behavioral characteristics of children and youths. The ICS-T yields three primary factors: AGG (argues, trouble at school, fights), POP (popular with boys, popular with girls, lots of friends), and ACA (spelling, math). Subsidiary factors include AFF (smile, friendly), OLY (appearance, sports, wins), and INT (shyness, sad, worry). The psychometric properties of the scale (internal structure, reliability, long-term stability) are presented and evaluated over successive ages. The scale factors have been linked to contemporaneous observations of behavior and social network membership. Developmental validity of the ICS-T includes the significant prediction of later school dropout and teenage parenthood. The ICS-T scale is described, along with instructions for use and scoring.