ABSTRACT

This study aimed to adapt the short form of the 12-item Highly Sensitive Child (HSC) scale into Turkish and examine its factor structure, validity, and reliability in school-age children and adolescents.

139 children and adolescents aged 8-18 years were reached. A total of 126 participants completed the HSC scale completely. In parallel with the original version, one-factor, three-factor, and bifactor models were tested in the Turkish sample. Negative Emotionality, Effortful Control, Perceptual Sensitivity, Behavioral Inhibition, Behavioral Activation System (BIS/BAS), Negative Affect, and Positive Affect scales were used to test the validity.

The confirmatory factor analysis showed that the one-factor structure was incompatible with the data, while the bifactor model was rejected. The three-factor model was accepted as the most compatible model with the data. The reliability values of the scale were found to be at acceptable values except for the Aesthetic Sensitivity subscale. Cronbach's alpha values were.68 for the 5-item Ease of Excitation subscale,.43 for the 4-item AES subscale,.63 for the 3-item Low Sensory Threshold subscale, and.64 for the 12-item HYC scale. The fact that the correlations of HYC and its subscales with similar temperament traits were in the expected directions points to the convergent validity of the scale. A significant percentage of the variances in HYC and its subscales were not explained by the similar scales examined, showing the discriminant validity of the scale.

As a result, it was found that the Turkish adaptation of the HYC scale was psychometrically adequate.