Developing a new assessment procedure of social information processing in adolescents within secure residential care

•We develop an assessment procedure of social information processing in adolescents.•Construct, content, and criterion validity explorations vary from moderate to high.•In secure residential care, adolescents with and without MBID do not differ on SIP.•The new SIP test instrument will be adjusted, extended, and improved. The purpose of the present study was to develop a new assessment procedure of social information processing (SIP) for adolescents, to explore its validity and to examine whether it differentiated between IQ groups. Ninety-four adolescents within secure residential care were administered the SIP instrument, the Youth Self Report and two subtests of the WISC/WAIS. Results showed that the constructs underlying the items of the instrument were associated with profiles from the SIP theory, the subsequent SIP steps were correlated, and several SIP steps were correlated to self-reported behavior. No differences were found between IQ groups. These first results have implications for adjustment of the instrument. Further research should confirm construct validity and psychometric qualities of the scales.