Social skill and social cognition in adolescents at genetic risk for psychosis

Adolescents at genetic high risk (GHR) for schizophrenia have shown social skill impairments and there is some evidence to suggest they have Theory of Mind (ToM) deficits; however no research has used a standardized, performance-based behavioral measure to assess social functioning in this population nor evaluated ToM with a well-validated measure. We evaluated the psychometric properties of a new, theoretically-derived assessment of social functioning in GHR adolescents: the “High-Risk Social Challenge” task (HiSoC). The second aim was to explore whether GHR adolescents would show social skill and ToM deficits as compared to a non-psychiatric control (NPC) group. The present study evaluated social functioning with the HiSoC and ToM with the Eyes Test in 23 GHR adolescents and 31 NPCs. The HiSoC demonstrated high levels of reliability and validity. The GHR adolescents showed social skill impairments, but not ToM deficits. The results suggest that the HiSoC is a potentially useful new measure of social functioning in GHR adolescents. Furthermore, the findings add to the current body of literature that indicates that social skill impairments are related to schizophrenia vulnerability.