|
Nonstandardized Tasks
|
 Nonstandardized
Tasks
Nonstandardized tasks allow for a view of social communication across different contexts. As context varies, we are suggesting that the processing demands that are placed on a child will vary. This viewpoint is conceived of as a "real time" continuum that reflects how context and processing may vary and thus affect a child's performance. Contextual demands refer to variables that can influence social performance; they include the structure of the task, the number of individuals involved in the task, distractions in the environment, and need for immediate response. Processing demands refer to the amount of energy or effort a child must exert in response to different contextual variables. These demands include memory, planning, organization, and integration. Using the "real time" continuum, we have identified four discrete nonstandardized tasks which may vary in contextual and processing demands. Because the demands vary, the child's social communication performance may differ in each task. For example, processing demands are likely to be fewer at the contrived end of the continuum, when a child has ample time to respond and few distracters. In contrast, processing demands may increase as the context becomes more naturalistic; a child may have less time to respond and be faced with distractions. Using this argument, one might expect a child to have more difficulty with social communication toward the naturalistic end of the continuum. However, remember context itself is complicated. One might argue that the naturalist environment provides redundancy of cues. Multiple cues come from the environment and from participants, perhaps making processing somewhat easier. The fact is, redundancy of cues in the natural environment may be helpful to some children, and distracting to others. We have attempted to simplify this somewhat by identifying four discrete tasks along our continuum. We will assume for the sake of clarity, that the processing and contextual demands increase as we move along the continuum, and as each task becomes more naturalistic, or more reflective of social communication in "real time." We realize this is an "idealized" view, and that contextual and processing demands depending upon many variables that can occur in any given situation. The table below presents our four tasks (hypothetical tasks, narrative tasks, analog tasks and direct observation) to illustrate the contextual and processing demands.
Standardized Tests
| Nonstandardized Tasks 
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
