Social information processing in preschool children: Preliminary evidence regarding A promising new assessment tool

The chapter reviews the literature on social information processing in the preschool years and discusses the value of understanding social cognition of preschool children. The chapter also describes preliminary evidence regarding the reliability and validity of a newly developed measure of social information processing designed especially for the preschool and kindergarten years. The measure-the Social Information Processing Interview - Preschool version (SIPI-P)-is based on the conceptual work of Dodge and his colleagues on social information processing. It is designed to address the critical gap in the SIP literature regarding the preschool years and to answer the call in the developmental community for measures of social competence appropriate to use on large and diverse populations of children. Data collected in the interview has been validated in a pilot study through the examination of links with social behavior ratings completed by parents. Findings provided initial evidence for the reliability and validity of the SIPI-P. The different SIPI-P subscales showed acceptable to very good internal consistency and the measure has shown promising signs of both discriminant and convergent validity when examined against parents' reports of children's behaviors. The results should be viewed cautiously, however, because of the small sample size of the pilot study. Results are discussed in terms of their value for the continuing research on social cognition processes in preschool and their value in advancing prevention and intervention programs based on social information processing approach in the preschool years.