Beyond static scoring: an interactional case study on the assessment of social-pragmatic inferencing skills of an autistic girl.

Abstract

Social-pragmatic inferencing skills are often examined using structured assessment methods that are administered in dyadic interaction situations involving a testee and a tester. Such assessments commonly build on static pass-or-fail scoring criteria that are not designed as sensitive to the interactional aspects of the assessment administration. In this single case study, we drew on discursive psychology and conversation analysis to examine whether the study of social interaction between an autistic girl (6;8 years), whom we call Liisa, and a tester during a theory of mind assessment administration could inform about Liisa's social-pragmatic inferencing ability beyond the scoring criteria stated in the assessment manual. The study shows that the qualitative moment-by-moment examination of interaction between Liisa and the tester reveals aspects of Liisa's social-pragmatic inferencing ability that are not captured by the static scoring criteria, such as the coordination of turn-taking and conversational repair. The contextualised examination of Liisa's conduct also allows to observe the reasoning of her answers to the theory of mind test questions. The findings encourage to consider the interactional aspects of structured assessment administration as a source of rich data to be scrutinised with qualitative analysis both in research and clinical practice.