Construction and Validity Evidence of the Autistic Person's Socialization Beliefs Scale (APSBS)

This research aimed to provide evidence on the validity of the Scale of Beliefs about the socialization of Autistic individuals in two studies in which exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted. In study 1, the participants consisted of 295 individuals from the general population; most of them were females (80%), aged 18–60 years (M = 27.5, SD = 9.13), and from Paraiba (42.4%). The exploratory factor analysis indicated that the scale was unifactorial; it was composed of 8 items with satisfactory discriminative power and a good level of internal consistency (α = 0.76). In study 2, the participants consisted of 276 individuals from the general population; most of them were from Paraiba (48.2%), aged 18–59 years (M = 28.6, SD = 9.13), and women (76.7%). Confirmatory factor analysis reinforced the unidimensionality of the scale; the adjustment indices for the proposed model were satisfactory. We can conclude that the final 8-item version of the scale is psychometrically valid and can be used in research contexts.