Normative data and psychometric properties of a farsi translation of the strange stories test.

Background And Objective: The Strange Stories test is one of the most commonly used tests to evaluate advanced "theory of mind," i.e. attribution of mental states. Normative data and psychometric properties of a new Farsi translation of this test were evaluated in a large community-based sample of Iranian school-aged children.

Methods: Through randomized cluster sampling, 398 children aged 9-11 years studying at 20 elementary schools were recruited from 4 central regions of Tehran, Iran. The mean age of the students was 9.96 years (SD = 0.92), and 51% were girls (n = 202). The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) was completed by parents. The Strange Stories test was completed by all children and repeated for 20% of them after 2-4 weeks to assess the test-retest reliability.

Findings: Students in upper grades had higher scores (P < .01); age predicted 2% of variance on the mental state score. Girls had significantly higher mentalizing scores than boys (P = .003). The split-half internal reliability coefficient was good (0.73). The test-retest reliability was fair to good. Item-scale score correlations were all significant (P < .01).

Conclusion: This new translation of the Strange Stories test is a reliable and valid instrument to evaluate higher level theory of mind abilities in community samples of Farsi speaking children. Autism Res 2017, 10: 1960-1967. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: "Mentalizing" or "theory of mind," the ability to recognize others' mental states, is a key aspect of social understanding. Mentalizing problems are characteristic of some clinical conditions such as autism. The Strange Stories is a test evaluating mentalizing in every day social situations. It was translated into Farsi language and administered to a group of Iranian school-aged children. The instrument was useful in assessing children's mind reading. Older children and girls were better in mentalizing ability.