The development of PLAA: A pictorial leisure activity assessment for adults with cogitive disabilities

Abstract

The pictorial leisure activity assessment (PLAA) was developed to assess the leisure competencies and preferences of people with cognitive disabilities. The PLAA is based on a well-established assessment widely utilized in therapeutic recreation, the State Technical Institute Leisure Activities Project (STILAP). An initial comparison testing of the STILAP with the PLAA was conducted to verify the feasibility of a pictorial version of the STILAP. The results of that study are posted below. The participants of the study were two adults with developmental disabilities living in a nursing home setting. The participants were initially assessed by three separate raters; one of the raters assessed while two other raters watched and documented responses of participants. The first testing of participants utilized the written version of the STILAP. Then participants were assessed with the pictorial version, PLAA. Upon completion, raters reported the following results: the PLAA took less time than the administration of STILAP, the PLAA was easier to administer, it provided them with more valid results based on participants affective responses (this has yet to be formally determined), subjects appeared more interested in pictures, less bored and provided answers that were more varied, the PLAA provided more opportunity for rapport building with the participants, and the entire PLAA was too long for clients. Based on these observations, the PLAA is a useful assessment due to its ease of administration, rapport building opportunities, and engaging properties. Thus, this feasibility study concluded that this assessment warrants further testing to determine its validity and reliability.