School Function Assessment
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What it is[edit | edit source]
The School Function Assessment (SFA) is a comprehensive tool which gathers students' ability to participate in general, daily, school based functional activities. [1]
The SFA helps identify the depth of support needed by a student when they resume schooling after a brain injury (a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) or ABI (Acquired Brain Injury)), with consideration for their strengths and limitations relating to participation in physical and cognitive school-based functional activities. [1]
The assessment helps provide an initial functional measure acting as a baseline, denotes challenging areas, facilitates therapy and education initiatives, and helps to carry out the assessment of a student's special educational accommodations.
The assessment was developed to be primarily carried out on elementary school children.
Why it is needed[edit | edit source]
The Assessment and scoring[edit | edit source]
The SFA is an exhaustive subjective based questionnaire. It is completed by professionals who have an understanding and have observed the student in question in the school setting.
As mentioned, it was designed to identify strengths and weaknesses in participation, and academic and school related concerns and accommodations that may be suitable to include in an individual education plan (IEP). These parts are categorised into the following skills:
- dsd
- sds
- dssd
Each Skill is scored out of 4 where:
1 = does not perform
2 = partial performance
3 = inconsistent performance
4 = Consistent performance
These scores are converted into criterion categories, which are made up of 3 parts:
Part I: Participation - this indicates the degree of the student's participation in six different settings: the classroom, playground, transport, toileting, mealtime, and travel around the school site, e.g. handling tools and materials. This is similar to the participatio component from the ICF framework applied to the primary school setting.
Part II: Task Supports - this indicates the degree of the needed support, assistance, or accommodations that the student requires participate in the school setting. this has two sections: assistance (which is support received from an adult) and adaptations (which are modifications to processes, programs, or the environment). This encompasses both physical and cognitive/behavoural tasks.
Part III: Activity Performance - this is also divided into two sections: 1) physical tasks, which is categorised into 12 areas (such as written work), and 2) cognitive tasks, which is categorised into 9 areas (consisting of memory and understanding).
Reliability & Validity[edit | edit source]
The SFA is shown to be valid and reliable with the measurement of functional school-based tasks, and to help guide the provision of support for students with disabilities. [1]
In a study by S. West et al (2013), of children with brain injury (TBI and ABI) who were assessed with the SFA, it was shown that 54 of 70 students improved their ability to participate in school activities. With this assessment, significant differences were noted between the admission and discharge SFA scores for participation, physical and cognitive assistance and adaptation, and activity performance (P < 0.05).
Case Examples to help creating IEPs[edit | edit source]
A 13 year old girl with a nontraumatic brain injury, who had difficulty with fine-motor skills, had 20 week so of rehabilitation and was assessed with the SFA. As she presented with ataxia, and received the necessary intervention, her scores on 'Manipulation with Movement', 'Using Materials', and 'Written Work' improved between 'admission' and 'discharge'.
Psychometric Properties[edit | edit source]
The SFA was standrdised on 363 students , who had varying disabilities, including TBI. Internal consistency has a range from 0.92-0.98, with the coefficient alpha procedure. Test-retest reliability coefficients ranged from 0.82-098. Inter-rater reliability are in the moderate range, for the three main categories of the Assessment, ranging from 0.68-0.73. It is noted that the same rater conducted both admission and discharge assessments.
Resources[edit | edit source]
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