(PS3-A4) Predicting Strengths and Difficulties from Patterns of CBT Practice Element Usage

Assessments that measure youth self-report usage of positive mental health skills exist, but typically target single skill sets and do not provide comprehensive screening across numerous domains. The Social Emotional, Evidence-Based Developmental Strengths Assessment (SEEDS; Ebesutani, 2019) is a novel youth-report tool that leverages distillation methodology to provide comprehensive screening of youth social-emotional competencies across important practice element skill sets, all towards the larger goal of reliably and validly assessing the extent to which youth utilize important CBT elements (e.g., exposure) in their daily lives. The SEEDS consists of three higher-order scales (i.e., Thoughts, Behaviors, Interpersonal) and 13 lower-order subscales (i.e., PsychoEducation, Cognitive Restructuring, Goal Setting, Talent Building, Problem-Solving Skills, Self-Praise & Rewards, Pleasant Activities, Relaxation, Antecedent Stimulus Management, Exposure, Social Skills, Communication Skills, Assertiveness Skills). 

The SEEDS has been psychometrically investigated with a large Korean sample (Ebesutani, 2019) and an English-speaking population (Matsui & Nakamura, 2022), exhibiting various forms of reliability and validity. This study is an extension of Matsui and Nakamura’s (2022) psychometric investigation of the SEEDS, included 402 youth for analyses, and consisted of 43.8% (n = 176) fourth graders, 33.6% (n = 136) fifth graders, and 22.6% (n = 91) sixth graders. Participants were between the ages of 8.96 and 12.75 (M = 10.63, SD = .86), and 50.2% were male (n = 202). Predominant self-reported ethnicities were highly consistent with recent census data for the state of Hawaii and included 58.5% (n =235) multiethnic (i.e., reported more than one ethnicity), Asian (n = 76, 18.9%), White (n = 48, 11.9%), and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander (n = 16, 4.0%).

The first aim of the current study is to investigate the degree to which the SEEDS higher-order scales differentially predict the Strengths and Difficulties questionnaire (SDQ; Goodman, 1998) scale scores to inform assessment strategies that may help guide treatment practices (e.g., focusing on specific CBT elements). For example, to what extent to the SEEDS Thoughts, Behaviors, Interpersonal higher-order scale scores predict the SDQ domains of Internalizing, Externalizing, and Prosocial strengths? The study's second aim is to investigate the degree to which the lower-order subscales differentially predict SDQ scale scores. The 13 practice element skills will be simultaneously used as predictors of the SDQ scale scores in order to determine the degree to which the individual practice element skills are related to overall strength-based competencies. All data have been collected, cleaned, and preliminarily investigated. Forthcoming analyses will include multiple linear regressions to evaluate the ability of youth reported social-emotional skill usage for predicting SDQ scale scores. Full model results, including variance accounted for by each predictor variable, will be presented along with future directions and potential limitations.