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The assessment
The assessment derives from the English "to assess" and indicates the methodology of the psychological assessment of the skills and potential of a person and / or a context aimed at drafting and carrying out projects. It is the base from which professionals start to build any type of intervention. It is a multidimensional collection of information which in the specific case focuses on the following areas:
Person running
Support that the person needs / has
The quality of life
Preferences, desires, values, expectations that the person expresses
Person running
Scales of evaluation of intellectual functions
Intelligence is a mental ability, which includes reasoning, planning, problem solving, abstract thinking and learning.
Among the main evaluation scales we find:
WISC-III
WAIS-III
Stanford- Binet-IV
Adaptive Behavior Rating Scales
Adaptive behavior is a set of conceptual, social and practical skills learned by people to cope with daily life.
Some of the scales that measure this behavior are:
Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales revised, VABS
ScaleAAMRdelAdaptive Behavior, ABS
Independent Behavior Scales, SIB-R
Supports
Support evaluation scales
With support we mean the help, the support, material represented by people or things that a person needs to see his or her need satisfied. In this category we find scales that measure the needs actually provided (eg. Va.So.Re) or scales that measure the needs it would be necessary to provide to guarantee a specific need (eg. SIS)
Evaluation protocol of the 10th AAMR / AAIDD definition, classification and support systems
The tool provides a perspective to frame the functioning of the person and describe it according to FIVE dimensions (intellectual skills, adaptive behavior, participation, health and context), helps the understanding of functioning difficulties, orientates and guides the assessment, guides planning of SUPPORTS. As represented in the diagram, the impact of the five dimensions is filtered and facilitated by SUPPORTS. The 'functioning' is then seen through the lens of the supports.
Quality of life (QoL)
Quality of life assessment scales
Quality of life is a multidimensional construct influenced by personal and environmental factors (Schalock). Domains are the set of these factors that make up a person's well-being. According to Schalock, these domains can be summarized in the following eight:
Emotional well-being
Interpersonal relationships
Material well-being
Personal development
Physical well-being
Self-determination
Social inclusion
Rights
Among others, some tools that refer to the quality of life model proposed by Schalock and Verdugo are the POS scales - Personal Outcomes Scale and the scale of the real exercise of opportunities.
Preferences and values
"... People with severe developmental disabilities have been offered very limited opportunities to make even the most basic choices ... in contrast to the fact that in a normal context of daily life people make dozens (if not hundreds) of choices ..." G Lancioni, 2005
Below we see that different tools, in relation to the skills expressed by the person, allow the expression of more or less complex choices.
Evaluation of preferences - single stimulus
People with severe intellectual disabilities may find themselves in the position of not being able to express even a choice between two different objects, but by observing the reactions to a single object we can understand how much the object can be liked or not.
Evaluation of preferences - values
Values are the compass that guides us along the journey of life. Pursuing values has a strong appetitive value for the person, therefore being able to investigate them and allow the person with disabilities to pursue them is of fundamental importance.
Evaluation of preferences - multistimulus
Then there are people with intellectual disabilities who are able to express choices but only in the face of stimuli, be they concrete and / or iconic. Based on the different conditions of the context and the abilities of the person we can choose between different multistimulus tools.
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