The importance of social skills in development is a well studied area of research, and deficits in these skills can have implications long into adulthood. Therefore, assessment tools must be able to aid clinicians in identifying areas of weaknesses to target in treatment. The purpose of the current paper was to investigate the factor structure of…

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of participation in different sport modalities on quality of life (QOL) and perceived social competence (PSC) in young people with physical disability. Ninety participants (33 females and 57 males) were monitored across four conditions: competitive separate physical activity (COSPA), recreational…

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between sit-to-stand (STS) movement, knee extensor torque and social participation in children with cerebral palsy (CP). Seven spastic hemiplegic CP patients (8.0 plus or minus 2.2 years), classified by the Gross Motor Function Classification System as I and II, and 18 typical children (8.4 plus or…

During face-to-face interactions typically developing individuals use gaze aversion (GA), away from their questioner, when thinking. GA is also used when individuals with autism (ASD) and Williams syndrome (WS) are thinking during question-answer interactions. We investigated GA strategies during face-to-face social style interactions with…

Schizophrenia and high functioning autism-spectrum disorders (ASD) are neurodevelopmental conditions that mainly impair social competence, while general intelligence (IQ) is spared. Both disorders have a strong ancillary role in theoretical research on social cognition. Recently the debate has started to be inflected by embodied and…

We compared participation in out-of-school activities between children with intellectual disability and children with typical development using the Children's Assessment of Participation and Enjoyment and Preferences for Activities of Children questionnaires. Thirty-eight pairs of children were matched for age (mean age 12.3 plus or minus 2.7…

We compare social skills in three groups of males with sex chromosome aneuploidies (SCAs) using the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS). Participants included males with XXY (N = 102, M = 10.08 years), XYY (N = 40, M = 9.93 years), and XXYY (N = 32, M = 11.57 years). XXY had lower (better) SRS scores compared to XYY and XXYY. Scores were not…

Intellectual disability affects different aspects of functioning and quality of life, as well as the ability to independently assess the quality of life itself. The paper examines the agreement in the quality of life assessments made by adolescents with intellectual disability and their parents compared with assessments made by adolescents without…

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of a Special Olympics (SO) Unified Sports (UNS) soccer program on psycho-social attributes of youth with and without intellectual disabilities (ID). Participants were 76 male youth with (n = 38) and without (n = 38) ID. Participants with ID were randomly allocated into a SO athletes group (n…

The aim of this study was to evaluate the differences in psychological well-being, symptomatic psychological disorders and social participation, between blind Torball players and non-players. Thirty blind male participants were recruited, 17 Torball players (aged 36.27 plus or minus 3.46) and 13 non-players (aged 34.80 plus or minus 2.53), and…

The purpose of the present study was to determine whether there was a significant difference in measure of socialization between visually impaired student-athletes and non-athletes. We compared the social skills of Iranian visually impaired student-athletes (n = 51) and visually impaired student non-athletes (n = 56) with ages ranging from 13 to…

Perceived social acceptance, theory of mind (ToM) and social adjustment were investigated in 45 children with intellectual disabilities (ID) compared with 45 typically developing (TD) preschoolers, matched for developmental age assessed by means of the Differential Scales of Intellectual Efficiency-Revised edition (EDEI-R, Perron-Borelli, 1996).…

The sibling relationship of adolescents with and without intellectual disabilities was examined. Participants were 70 sibling dyads--each dyad was comprised of one 12-year old adolescent with (N = 23) or without intellectual disabilities (N = 47). Sibling relationships, behavior problems, and social skills were assessed using mother reports.…

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and tic disorders (TD) commonly co-occur. Clarifying the psychiatric comorbidities, executive functions and social adjustment difficulties in children and adolescents of ADHD with and without TD is informative to understand the developmental psychopathology and to identify their specific clinical…

Recent research widely acknowledges that developmental co-ordination disorder (DCD) is a pervasive and enduring disorder, which persists into adolescence and adulthood ([Cousins and Smyth, 2003] and [Kirby et al., 2008]). However, few studies have given detailed consideration to the range and level of functioning difficulties in emerging adults…