About the ESI
The Evaluation of Social Interaction (ESI) is a new and dynamic observational instrument used by occupational therapists to evaluate a person’s quality of social interaction during natural social exchanges with typical social partners. It can help the occupational therapist answer the following questions:
- What is this person's quality of social interaction? (a criterion-referenced interpretation)
- How does the quality of this person's social interaction compare with healthy, well persons of the same age? (a norm-referenced interpretation)
- Which social interaction performance skills are most impacting this person's occupational performance?
- What is the best focus of planned intervention intended to improve quality of social interaction?
- Has there been a change in this person's quality of social interaction performance since the last ESI evaluation?
- Can be used to evaluate persons with any level of social interaction
- Is standardized on persons 2 years of age through older adulthood
- Is based on criterion-based scoring, and both criterion- and norm-based interpretation
- Is developed and standardized using Rasch measurement methods
- Has strong evidence for internal scale validity and reliability