Evaluation of Social Interaction (ESI)

In the process of developing the ESI, it has become apparent that valid and reliable administration and interpretation requires that interested occupational therapists (a) participate in a training course, and (b) become calibrated as a reliable rater. The 3-day training workshops provide critical information related to the theoretical basis of the ESI as well as experiential learning of administering and scoring ESI evaluations.

Within a 3-day ESI training course, participants also obtain valuable, hands-on information regarding occupation-based assessment and intervention. In fact, after taking an ESI training course, participants have often commented that they have finally found their niche, their unique occupation-based role, within the rehabilitation team. With the new skills and insights they developed during the course, their confidence is enhanced, and they are more capable and proactive advocates for occupational therapy and the use of occupation as both a means and an end when providing occupational therapy services.

Finally, rater calibration requires that potential raters view and score videotaped ESI observations during the course and then complete 10 live observations after the course. Rater calibration allows us to determine each rater’s severity and whether or not he or she is scoring the ESI in a reliable manner.

This page was last modified on 11 January 2010