LAUSR

OBJECTIVE Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) operationalizes a set of basic social dimensions that can be used to deconstruct sources of variation in social impairments across affected individuals, regardless of their diagnostic status. This step is necessary towards the development of etiologically-based and individualized treatments. The main objective of the current investigation was to derive estimations of the RDoC social constructs from the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS-2). METHOD Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling (ESEM) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were conducted using individual SRS-2 items from 6 distinct databases (total N= 27953; Mage= 9.55, SD= 3.79; 71.7% male participants) spanning normative (33.8%) and atypical (66.2%) development. The following models were estimated: (1) a 1-factor model; (2) a 3-factor model with separate Attachment and Affiliation (AA), Social Communication (SC), and Understanding of Mental States (UMS) factors, and (3) a 4-factor model where SC was further split into Production of Facial (PFC) and Non-Facial (PNFC) communication. RESULTS The 1-factor solution showed poor fit. The 3-factor solution had adequate fit (comparative fit index [CFI]= .952, Tucker Lewis index [TLI]= .937, root mean square error of approximation [RMSEA]= .054), however, 4-factor solution had superior fit (CFI= .973, TLI= .961, RMSEA= .042) and was robust across age, gender and clinical status. CONCLUSION To our knowledge, this is the first study examining estimations of the RDoC social constructs from an existing measure. Reported findings show promise for capturing important RDoC social constructs using the SRS-2 and highlight crucial areas for the development of novel dimensional social processing measures.