Evaluation question

Hello Tami,

Although a vocational evaluation takes place in a controlled environment, we try to emulate work-like conditions to see how the evaluee performs, their positional tolerances, attention span, ability to stay on task and to work at a productive pace (especially on work samples).  I would schedule a second session at the point when an evaluee say they cannot continue, at which point test results would have little validity. The important thing is to document everything, their behavior, performance, complaints, etc. How did they feel after the first session? How do they feel during the second session (especially if on consecutive days)? This is all important information to get a sense of their work tolerance (I.E. performing sedentary tasks in an office-like setting). If a person has difficulty doing sedentary tasks for less than 3 hours in a controlled environment, how would they perform in a competitive work setting, with typical work pressures? Hope this helps.

There are a couple things I do to assess client symptoms. I ask them to give me a range for each symptoms (bad day vs good day) on a scale of 0-10. I also ask them to rate their symptoms (same scale) at the start and the end of the evaluation. This helps understand how/if their symptoms progress during the assessment. I also take note of their behaviour during the assessment and the level of accommodation they needed to complete tasks. With personal injury cases, it is common to observe an aggravation of pain and fatigue. Gathering all this data helps, along with other sources (i.e. medical reports, work and/or school experience post injury) to get a sense of the person’s level of function.