The purpose of this study was to develop and validate the Assessment of Communication and Interaction Skills (ACIS). The ACIS is an observational rating scale designed to capture, in detail, a person's social Interactional ability while he or she is participating in a meaningful social context. Fifty-two occupational therapists, trained to administer the ACIS, completed 244 ACIS assessments of 117 subjects with psychosocial disabilities. The subjects had a wide range of communication and interaction abilities. Many-faceted Rasch analysis was used to analyse the data.
The results supported internal, construct and person response validity of the ACIS. Both intrarater and inter-rater reliability were established. The scale was shown to discriminate between people with psychosocial dysfunction who had varying communication and interaction abilities. In addition, the results indicated a need to do minor revisions to the assessment.
