Tuesday 4th December Update

Hi Will,

This is my update for today's work (Tuesday 4th December).  We met at 10am and began with discussing the two papers I read last week regarding the definition of participation which we will be using for the research, and how to determine whether an assessment is actually looking at participation or not.  I feel that from this discussion, I have gained a much better understanding of the difference between participation and performance, particularly relating to children.

I then practiced determining whether a question is asking about a child's participation, or their performance  using the Review of Participation Measures, and when we compared my answers to yours, Jodie's and Sylvia's, I had an 80% agreement.  We discussed any answers which were different, and I now understand not to over-think the question too much and look only at the words used, rather than consider all the options and details which are not included.  For example, in the question which said: "dressing", it is not assessing participation as it is asking only about the activity without any context or purpose.  When I originally answered the question, I said "undetermined" as I was considering all the different reasons someone may be getting dressed.  Since discussing this with you, I realise that we are looking only at the word "dressing" which simply describes an activity.

After I practiced, I then reviewed the Children's Assessment of Participation in Life with Hands (CAP-Hand) and we determined that I felt that only 65.9% of the questions were participation.  However, when we removed the questions relating to self-care, my score increased to 80%.  These results were only from my first impression of the questions, and since discussing these with you, my answers changed slightly as I began to understand what the question was asking.

I found today very beneficial in helping me understand participation and exactly what we will be doing in the following weeks.  I have a meeting with Jodie tomorrow (Wednesday) at 10:30am, then I will see you on Thursday at 10am to begin formally reviewing assessments.  We have also locked in Friday at 9:30am for any other work we would like to finish this week.

Kelly