by Glen E. Roberts, PhD
Purpose: Evaluate children's social perception
Age: 6-18 years
Qualification Level: A (Psychologist)
The Roberts-2 uses free narrative to assess two independent dimensions: adaptive social perception and the presence of maladaptive or atypical social perception. The first of these is a developmental measure; the second is a clinical measure. The scales on the Roberts-2, refined for easier scoring and interpretation, reflect both developmental and clinical concerns.
The Roberts-2 provides a series of 16 pictures depicting children's and adolescents' everyday experience. Given each picture, a child is asked to tell a complete story and a transcript is made. A comprehensive scoring system is applied to the story that is produced, and a series of scales are scored that reflect the child's social cognitive competence in relating a story that successfully integrates the elements depicted in the picture.
The Roberts-2 is not a projective test. It uses a child's expressive language as an index of his or her social cognitive skills. The pictures provide a structured set of stimuli that direct the child to deal with common social situations. The story the child tells is seen to reflect relatively stronger or weaker abilities to recognise, assimilate, and organise these stimuli into competent social problem-solving situations. Roberts-2 scales include two Theme Overview scales, six Available Resources scales, five Problem Identification scales, five Resolution scales, four Emotion scales, four Outcome scales, and two Unusual or Atypical Responses scales.
The Roberts-2 is intended for use with children or adolescents who have been referred to mental health or special education facilities for social or emotional adjustment problems. Used as part of a full evaluation, the Roberts-2 supplements the information that is obtained through interviews with the child and parents, objective assessments, and intelligence measures. The Roberts-2 is especially effective with children who are just entering counselling or therapy. It also is useful in measuring change over the course of treatment. Because it also is standardised on non-referred children, it is an ideal way to assess developmental change and situational crises in normal children.
Special Features of the Roberts-2
- The Manual and test materials have been updated and improved, making the Roberts-2 easier to learn to use and better suited to daily application with a wider variety of children and adolescents.
- Card sets reflecting the largest U.S. ethnic groups have been added and were used as an integral part of test standardisation and validation.
- Coding categories have been clarified and better differentiated.
- The scoring sheets have been redesigned to provide a more efficient use of space and a more intuitive scheme for entering codes.
- The interpretation section has been more fully elaborated to include a scale-by-scale discussion of score meaning.
Detailed Casebook Helps You Write Reports
The Roberts-2 Casebook is designed to help clinicians integrate Roberts-2 test scores and interpretation into school reports, special education reports, and clinical case reports. Seventeen cases are described: 4 that describe normally developing children to help provide a grounded sense of typical variability, and 13 chosen to highlight prevalent issues in diagnostic categories that are among the most commonly evaluated in children and adolescents.
Roberts-2 Computer Scoring Program
This new, unlimited-use computer program simplifies scoring of the Roberts-2, allowing you to get the job done with greater speed and accuracy. After manual entry of Roberts-2 stories, the program generates:
- Instant access to coding definitions, picture descriptions, common themes, and the author's detailed scoring notes.
- A real-time, story-by-story display of codes as you apply them.
- Automated error checking to prevent incorrect or incompatible codes.
- Automated review to insure the presence of all required codes.
- The flexibility to obtain a scoring profile after entering stories and coding text in detail or to simply enter codes for display and storage.
- An accurate summary of results.
- The option of attaching notes to your report.
This program helps you learn coding procedures more quickly at the outset, substantially reducing scoring time thereafter. In addition, it enables you to generate reports that provide a clear, accurate, and complete record of test results. As a bonus, the program includes several unscored stories from the Roberts-2 Manual and Roberts-2 Casebook that you can use for scoring practice.
Requirements: Windows® 98/2000/Me/XP/Vista™; 4MB hard drive space; USB port; CD-ROM drive