Assess children’s ability to care for themselves
The REAL™ (The Roll Evaluation of Activities of Life) offers a useful screening instrument to help you assess children’s ability to care for themselves at home, at school, and in the community. This standardised rating scale provides you with information on the activities of daily living (ADLs) and independent activities of daily living (IADLs) most common among children ages 2:0–18:11.
Recommended Uses
The REAL may be used as a screening tool by occupational therapists, psychologists, mental health, medical and education professionals in a variety of settings, such as outpatient hospitals/clinics, mental health facilities, and educational settings. This assessment helps you to:
- Determine the need for skilled and supportive services - Presents standardised scores that quantify a child’s ability level and highlight the individual’s deficits and strengths in functional ability. The assessment results help you determine services that are needed and level of care.
- Develop Individual Educational Plans and choose intervention services - Can be administered to help you identify children with additional needs during a school’s early intervention screening process, evaluate children with special educational needs who transfer from different local authorities, or assist with developing transition plans.
- Make decisions on placement and living arrangements - Yields valuable information to help professionals and caregivers determine appropriate placement and living arrangements for children with special needs so that they can reach their highest level of independence and best quality of life.
- Evaluate programs - Offers you a useful measurement of participants’ abilities prior to and after a program and can highlight program areas that have been successful and program areas that require improvement.
- Conduct research - Provides you with valid, reliable data and standardised scoring information to support assessment of children ages 2:0–18:11 for research projects on child development and skill attainment.
Content & Administration
Parents or caregivers rate their child’s demonstration of each skill on a scale of 0 to 3 - Unable to Frequently. The instrument takes approximately 15 to 20 minutes to complete, depending on the child’s age and ability.
The REAL comprises two domains: ADL and IADL. To evaluate skills in the ADL domain, there are 78 statements that address six skill areas
| |
Dressing |
Hygiene & Grooming |
Feeding |
Toileting |
Functional Mobility |
Personal Care Devices |
|
Number of Statements
|
20*
|
20
|
13
|
11
|
10
|
2
|
*plus 2 additional statements for Female Dressing
There are statements specific to female dressing and personal care devices that provide information, but do not count toward the score and were not included in standardisation of the evaluation.
The IADL domain consists of 58 statements that address six skill areas.
| |
Housework/chores |
Managing Money & Shopping |
Meal Preparation |
Personal Safety |
Travelling |
School-Related Skills |
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Number of Statements
|
14
|
8
|
8
|
13
|
7
|
8
|
Features & Benefits
The REAL helps you measure how a child:
- Obtains the supplies needed to complete the activity
- Is or is not able to maintain a safe body position while performing the activity
- Sequences all the steps required
- Problem-solves and makes appropriate and safe choices during the activity.
Psychometric Information
Data were collected in the US from a representative sample of 786 typically developing participants, age’s 2:0 to 18:11. Data were also collected from 58 participants from other countries (the international group; including the UK) and 164 participants with disabilities (the clinical group). These data were collected using the same procedures as the normative sample.
Scoring
The evaluation yields an ADL and an IADL score. These scores can be used to chart a child’s growth and development throughout his or her childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood.
The REAL provides:
- Standard scores
- Percentile ranks
- Standard error of measure.