Examining young children’s social competence using functional ability profiles

Abstract

Purpose: To explore the use of International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health for Children and Youth (ICF-CY) based profiles of children’s functional abilities in relation to their social competence. Subgroups based on shared profiles of functional ability were investigated as an alternative or complement to subgroups defined by disability categories.

Methods: Secondary analysis of a nationally representative data set of young children identified for special education services in the United States was used for the present study. Using five subgroups of children with shared profiles of functional ability, derived from latent class analysis in previous work, regression analyses were used to examine the relationships between social competence and functional abilities profile subgroup membership. Differences among the subgroups were examined using standardized effect sizes. R² values were used to examine explained variance in social competence in relation to subgroup membership, disability category, and these variables in combination.

Results: Functional ability profile subgroup membership was moderately related to children’s social competence outcomes: social skills and problem behaviors. Effect sizes showed significant differences between subgroups. Subgroup membership accounted for more variance in social competence outcomes than disability category.

Conclusions: The results provide empirical support for the importance of functional ability profiles when examining social competence within a population of young children with disabilities.

Implications for Rehabilitation

• The extent to which children with disabilities experience difficulty with social competence varies by their functional characteristics.

• Functional ability profiles can provide practitioners and researchers working young children with disabilities important tools to examine social competence and to inform interventions.

Keywords:

• ICF-CY
• disability category
• social skills
• problem behavior
• latent class analysis

Acknowledgements

The authors wish thank Tamara Daley and Elaine Carlson for supporting this work by their willingness to share the PEELS-Disability Index. Tara McLaughlin was previously a Research Scientist for the Anita Zucker Center for Excellence in Early Childhood Studies, School of Special Education, School Psychology, and Early Childhood Studies, University of Florida; she is now at the Institute of Education, Massey University and is a collaborating partner with the Anita Zucker Center for Excellence in Early Childhood Studies, University of Florida.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

American Educational Research Association10.13039/100005165

National Science Foundation10.13039/100000001

This research was conducted at the University of Florida with material support from the Anita Zucker Center for Excellence in Early Childhood Studies. This research was also supported by a grant from the American Educational Research Association which receives funds for its “AERA Grants Program” from the National Science Foundation under Grant #DRL-0941014. Opinions reflect those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the granting agencies. In conducting this research, the authors had no financial or non-financial conflicts of interest.