Assessing environmental sensitivity in the primary school context: The development and validation of the highly sensitive child in school scale (HSC – School)

Jenni Elise Kähkönen; Francesca Lionetti; Luciana Castelli; Michael Pluess

doi:10.1016/j.paid.2026.113875

Assessing environmental sensitivity in the primary school context: The development and validation of the highly sensitive child in school scale (HSC – School)

Jenni Elise Kähkönen, Francesca Lionetti, Luciana Castelli Michael Pluess

Personality and Individual Differences, Vol.259, 113875

09/2026

: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2026.113875

Environmental sensitivity

Highly sensitive children

Primary school

Sensory processing sensitivity

Teacher-report

Around 30% of children are highly sensitive to their environment and process experiences particularly deeply. To facilitate research into highly sensitive children in primary school, we developed a new teacher-report measure. The scale was initially implemented and analysed in a multi-informant sample of two hundred twenty 6–9-year-old Swiss children and their parents and teachers, followed by a validation study in England encompassing teacher reports on two hundred seven 6–9-year-old British children. Analysis across both samples led to a scale well suited to capture sensitivity in the context of school. The new Highly Sensitive Child in School scale (HSC – School) includes a six-item core sensitivity scale aimed at identifying sensitive children and an additional 3-item overstimulation scale. Sensitivity measured with this scale is normally distributed, presents similarly in girls and boys, but only correlates with overstimulation in some (UK sample) but not other contexts (Swiss sample), highlighting that sensitive children's adjustment differs across school environments. This scale will be valuable for research and the identification of children at risk during potentially stressful transitioning periods or when confronted with challenges or stressors at home or school.

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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2026.113875

Published (Version of record)

: Assessing environmental sensitivity in the primary school context: The development and validation of the highly sensitive child in school scale (HSC – School)
: Jenni Elise Kähkönen - University of Surrey, Psychology
Francesca Lionetti - University of Pavia
Luciana Castelli - University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland
Michael Pluess - University of Surrey, Psychology
: Personality and Individual Differences, Vol.259, 113875
: Elsevier
: 08/05/2026
: 09/2026
: 02/05/2026
: Differential Susceptibility to Early Education: Development and Validation of Sensitivity Measures for the School Context (EStoSCHOOL), 2018 1300 0, Jacobs Foundation (Switzerland, Zurich)
: This work was supported by Jacobs Foundation [grant number 2018 1300 0].
: 991124595502346
: © 2026 Elsevier Ltd. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies. For the purpose of open access, the authors have applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising.
: Psychology
: English
: Journal article