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Assessment Domains and Interviewing

Module 6: Functional Assessment and Readiness · Lesson 1 of 3

15 min Back to module

Story opener

Thursday, 4:40 p.m. A participant is sitting across from you, your supervisor wants three notes before you leave, and the answer you need is not in any binder on the shelf. This lesson is the part of the job nobody handed you in orientation.

Learning objectives

  • Be able to current functioning, desired functioning, and barriers for each domain
  • Be able to walk through a real day rather than asking for averages

Lesson

Cover the domains, but keep it a conversation.

Assess daily living, health management, housing stability, financial and benefits management, social and family relationships, education, employment, community mobility, safety, and symptom self-management. For each, ask what the person does now, what they want to do, and what gets in the way.

Use concrete anchors: walk through yesterday hour by hour. Retrospective specifics are more accurate than general self-ratings.

Maryland guidance & authority labels

Every statement below is labeled so you know what is binding regulation, what is only proposed, what is professional guidance, and what is our house standard.

  • PRA guidance

    Functional assessment covers current skills, readiness, environment demands, and existing supports — not symptoms alone.

  • Internal best practice

    Assess in the environment where the skill must actually be used whenever it is safe and practical.

Common mistakes

  • Describing what you did without describing what the participant did.

    Do this instead — Record the intervention and the participant's observable response to it.

  • Treating regulation as a filing chore separate from practice.

    Do this instead — Let the required elements shape the session itself, so documentation writes itself.

Practical examples

Practical example

Instead of 'met with participant to discuss goals,' write: 'Reviewed the transportation objective; participant identified the #22 route unassisted and named one back-up plan. Verbal prompt needed once. Next session: practice the transfer at Mondawmin.'

Key takeaways

  • Current functioning, desired functioning, and barriers for each domain
  • Walk through a real day rather than asking for averages

Reflection prompts

  1. 1Which part of this lesson describes something you are already doing differently in practice?
  2. 2What would an auditor see in your last five notes that contradicts this standard?

Bring your answers to supervision — the case-study workspace in this module saves written notes to your account.

Knowledge check

4 questions drawn from a bank of 7 · 75% to pass · instant feedback on every answer

1. How should you treat this statement? "Functional assessment covers current skills, readiness, environment demands, and existing supports — not symptoms alone."

2. A colleague does this: Treating regulation as a filing chore separate from practice. What should they do instead?

3. A participant says he wants to work but cannot name any reason his current situation must change. This most likely indicates:

4. A colleague does this: Describing what you did without describing what the participant did. What should they do instead?