Overview
The BASS was designed to assess social skills in people with suspected or diagnosed dementia, enabling individuals, their families, and clinicians to better understand how dementia has affected their cognition and behaviour.
Following validation of the original BASS tool, the BASS-D, a short version, the BASS-S, was developed to provide a multi-domain profile of social skills for an individual with dementia in 15-20 minutes. We recommend using the BASS-S as part of routine assessments in clinical and research settings focused on dementia.
This website has been developed as a training package for clinicians and researchers, offering comprehensive resources to ensure you feel prepared and professional when using the BASS. We aim to provide all the instructions, materials, and research evidence you need to confidently implement this screening tool. Here you will find administration and scoring guidelines, an administration training video, a scoring example, all necessary administration materials, and research publications associated with the BASS.
Background
Social skills are the abilities that enable us to communicate and build relationships with others. These include the ability to read facial expressions and understand tone of voice; to put yourself in another's shoes to know what they might be thinking and feeling, and to predict what they might do next; and to show empathy and concern for others.
Social skills are frequently impaired in people with dementia. There may be deficits in facial processing and emotion recognition; understanding others' thoughts and intentions; empathy; and recognising subtler nuances in language, such as sarcasm and lies, as well as social behaviour.
Objective assessment of social skills is rarely undertaken in clinical settings, partly because there are few appropriate screening tools for quick assessment. The BASS provides a brief and informative assessment of social cognition in people with dementia, filling a current gap.
The BASS was developed by Dr Michelle Kelly and Professor Skye McDonald. For further information about Dr Kelly, please visit her University of Newcastle profile and her research lab website and work of the Centre for Integrated Dementia Care. For more information about Professor McDonald, please visit her University of New South Wales profile and her research lab website.