Skill assessment resources

Skills Inventory 

The Ontario government offers two useful resources:

• Essential skills, which gives a list of skills the authors feel are needed for success in “work, learning and life” 
• Work habits, which gives a list of skills needed for any kind of work (or, by extension, volunteer job)

TTAP (TEACCH Transition Assessment Profile), Gary Mesibov, John B. Thomas, S. Michael Chapman, Eric Schopler 

This expensive ($94) volume, also available from the Geneva Centre library, is a professional resource, but an extremely valuable one. It is intended to be a tool used to assess “current and potential skills in those areas most important for successful, semi-independent functioning in the home and the community”. This is a formalized measurement instrument meant to be administered, in part, by trained professionals (including teachers). To do the formalized measurement, you need to use the specific test measurement tools (included with the book) but just the list of items (e.g. “smiles appropriately”) and the description of the scoring (“passing”, “emerging”, or “failing”) should be very useful to parents as well, even if this just use their judgement to assign an informal score. Of course, the book doesn’t tell you how to get from to a “passing” score, but it does help you figure out what items need work and how to take those scores and turn them to goals. The document outlines 216 items in six functional areas: vocational skills, vocational behaviours, independent functioning (self-help), leisure skills, functional communication, and interpersonal behaviour.

The Assessment of Functional Living Skills (AFLS) by James Partington, Michael Mueller 

This is a set of assessment tools from the people who brought you the ABLLS It’s being published in a series of documents (basic living skills, community participation skills and home life skills). To be candid, I don’t think these contain anything that a little common sense and time wouldn’t tell you but in the absence of the time to undertake this, you might consider purchasing these documents.

FISH: Functional Independence Skills Handbook, Assessment and Curriculum for Individuals with Developmental Disabilities (10900)

 Note these are functional skills, not life skills, and include things like cognitive abilities, socialization, and speech.

CALS - Checklist of Adaptive Living Skills 

LINKS

A curriculum for “assessment and instruction to promote student independence in natural environments”

PAES (Practical Assessment Exploration System) 

 A U.S. company (“Talent Assessment Inc.”) has developed a “work development transition curriculum”. I saw this at Calgary’s Ability Hub and thought it was an excellent resource that I’d love to see here in Toronto. Anyone have $20,000 to spare?

Tasks Galore/Tasks Galore for the Real World (Laurie Eckenrode, Pat Fennell, Kathy Hearsey) 

These books contain brief but clear overviews of using visual structure to help people with an ASD perform tasks independently and accurately. The bulk of each book is made up of colour images of visually-structured task/work environments that can act as inspiration. “Tasks Galore” deals primarily with pre-work skills such as fine motor, language, math, reasoning, etc. “Tasks Galore for the Real World” focuses on specific vocational (and life) skills. Both books cost about $50 but are also available for loan from the Geneva Centre library. I feel these are books that would help parents set up home-based tasks that will develop their child’s independence and skills, and would help employers design work environments that increase the success of those with ASD.