Nonstandardized Tasks
- Hypothetical
- Narrative
- Analog
- Direct   Observation

If you have not previously answered our Nonstandard-ized Task Use questionnaire, please click here.

Analog tasks begin to approach naturalistic interactions. These tasks refer to "counterfeit" social situations; that is, they are social situations set up by the clinician to reveal spontaneous behaviors. These tasks are akin to elicitation tasks that provide opportunities likely to elicit particular behaviors, yet are similar to a naturalistic context.

These tasks allow clinicians to observe two or more children interacting with each other as they attempt to solve important social problems. Analog tasks simulate conditions that children are likely to face at school, home, or playing with peers (i.e., naturalistic contexts). The real time contextual demands increase: structure is reduced, more individuals may be involved, distractions may mount, and immediacy of a response increases. However, multiple cues are present in the environment, via the situation, materials, and participants, providing redundancy in cueing, which could be helpful to some children. Analog tasks can be efficient to administer and score.

For references that describe these tasks, see:

• Fujiki, Brinton, Robinson, & Watson (1997)
• Brinton, Fujiki and Higbee (1998)
• Brinton, Fujiki and McKee (1998)

Advantages:

• Tasks sample socially significant events in real time.
• Tasks can be administered in a clinic room and within a short amount of time.
• Scoring performance can be straightforward, easy to accomplish.

Limitations:

• Tasks may not elicit the behaviors of interest. Considerable energy may be used to set up the analog task, and the children may not cooperate in producing the behaviors the clinician wishes to sample.

Design Protocol:

• To assist you in developing your own Analog Tasks, we have provided you with a design protocol. This protocol contains guidelines and examples for creating analog tasks for sampling social communication behaviors, and for scoring children's responses. Hopefully, this protocol will allow you to develop and implement analog tasks to assist in the assessment of children for whom you suspect social communication problems.

Video Segment

Analog Tasks Video (31MB, QuickTime Movie)

This video segment illustrates an analog task that requires children work together and negotiate when presented a problem. This task is based on the works by Brinton, Fujiki & McKee (1998) and Fujiki, Brinton, Robinson & Watson (1997).

Three children of approximately the same age (11;6-12;0, developing typically), but who do not know each other, are asked to assist in identifying a toy to be purchased for our clinic. First, each child is shown a toy catalog and asked to select a toy he/she thinks would be a good purchase. Second, the children are asked to come together and agree upon one selection. Because each child has selected a separate toy and only one toy can be chosen for purchase, this aspect of the task is designed to facilitate active negotiation among the children. For their efforts, the children are given chips that will be exchanged for a snack. Third, and finally, the children are instructed about exchanging their chips for a snack. To encourage negotiation among the children, each possible item in the "snack shop" requires more chips than any one child has; therefore, they must pool their resources to make a selection. The video segment presents the selection of a toy by an individual child, negotiation among the children for the selection of one toy by the group, and the snack shop discussion.

A free download of QuickTime Player is available at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/

Hypothetical | Narrative | Analog | Direct Observation
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