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The SSI measures the fit between the school environment and the student with a disability. It is used to identify school activities that are not a good fit. The therapist collaborates with the student to determine adjustments to the environment in order to promote participation in school activities.
16
40 minutes
Child
6 - 12
yearsAdolescent
13 - 17
yearsAdult
18 - 64
yearsInitial review completed by University of Illinois at Chicago MS in Occupational Therapy students Raveena Kingra, Rikki Ostrowski, & Amalia Zeidman.
Hemmingsson, Kottorp, and Bernspang (2004) suggest adding more difficult items to the SSI in order to improve the psychometric properties. Adding more challenging items would increase the ability of the assessment to separate people and be more precise in measuring the student-environment fit. The authors also specify the need for testing the validity of the SSI among different cultures with larger samples.
The manual states practitioners can use the SSI with students who have physical disabilities and students who have cognitive disabilities even though the research has focused on student populations with physical disabilities (Hemmingsson et al., 2005). This assessment could introduce bias if students’ perceptions do not accurately reflect environmental adaptations they might need. Moreover, some of the items may not apply to different cultures (e.g. going on field trips, doing sports activities), and published research has only focused on students from Sweden.
The SSI manual does not currently include any cut-off scores or recommendations that pertain to the sum score.
Swedish Students with severe Physical Disabilities: (Hemmingsson & Borell, 1996; n = 45, Age Range = [16, 19])
Construct Validity - Item Fit:
Swedish Students with Physical Disabilities: (Hemmingsson, Kottorp, & Bernspang, 2004; n = 87; Age Range = [8, 19])
Swedish Students with Severe Physical Disabilities: (Hemmingsson & Borell, 1996)
Hemmingsson, H. & Borell, L. (1996). The development of an assessment of adjustment needs in the school setting for use with physically disabled students. Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy, 3, 156-162.
Hemmingsson, H., Egilson, S., Oshrat, H., & Kielhofner, G. (2005). The School Setting Interview: SSI version 3.0. Swedish Association of Occupational Therapists.
Hemmingsson, H., Kottorp, A., & Bernspang, B. (2004). Validity of the School Setting Interview: An assessment of the student-environment fit. Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy, 11, 171-178.
We have reviewed more than 500 instruments for use with a number of diagnoses including stroke, spinal cord injury and traumatic brain injury among several others.