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Construct and criterion validities of the Service Need Assessment Profile (SNAP): a measure of support for people with disabilities
- Authors:
- GUSCIA Roma, et al
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability, 31(3), September 2006, pp.148-155.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
The Service Need Assessment Profile (SNAP) measures individual functional needs in areas of daily living. It produces a support profile, detailing the time allocations for staff support to assist in each area of need. The Supports Intensity Scale (SIS) is a support needs assessment scale designed to provide an objective measure of a person's need for support in medical, behavioural, and life activities. SIS can be used for individualised support planning, clinical judgements regarding support needs, resource allocation and financial planning. The Inventory for Client and Agency Planning (ICAP) assesses adaptive and maladaptive behaviours and gathers additional information to determine type and amount of special assistance that people with disabilities need. This study evaluated the construct and criterion validities of SNAP in relation to the SIS and ICAP, using assessment data from 114 individuals with a range of disabilities and levels of severity. Construct and criterion validities were supported for the SNAP by high correlations with SIS, ICAP, and staff estimates of support needs and by its capacity to discriminate between sub‐groups in expected ways. The results provide support for the use of SNAP as a support needs instrument.
Rater bias and the measurement of support needs
- Authors:
- GUSCIA Roma, et al
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability, 31(3), September 2006, pp.156-160.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
The development and use of support need instruments for funding disability services is a relatively recent initiative. Although the use of these measures appears at face value to provide an objective measure of support needs, little is known about their psychometric properties, particularly with respect to rater bias and purpose of assessment. A measure of support that has been developed in Australia to provide estimates of service needs and associated funding is the Service Need Assessment Profile (SNAP). This study investigated whether SNAP scores obtained for different assessment purposes – research and funding – are affected by rater bias, by comparing SNAP to 3 other measures of support from 29 people with intellectual disabilities.The authors found that SNAP scores completed for funding purposes showed an individual's support needs to be much greater than comparison scores on both SNAP and the 3 other measures obtained for research purposes. The results suggest that support measures such as SNAP may significantly overestimate support needs when raters know the assessment is being used for funding purposes
Reliability of the Service Need Assessment Profile (SNAP): a measure of support for people with disabilities
- Authors:
- GUSCIA Roma, et al
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability, 30(1), March 2005, pp.24-30.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
Measures for estimating costs associated with the provision of disability services in Australia have not previously been available. Because such instruments are scarce worldwide, decisions about funding services have relied more on historical precedent and less on individual need. Recognising the necessity for an objective measure, Gould (1998) developed the Service Need Assessment Profile (SNAP), a scale for estimating the support needs and associated costs for people with disabilities.This study examined the technical properties of SNAP using assessment data from 318 adults (190 males and 128 females), mean age 43 years, with a range of disability types and levels of severity, residing in supported accommodation around metropolitan Adelaide, South Australia. Results suggest that SNAP's reliability varies across different sub-groups and across domains. The study concludes that using SNAP assessments as a method for allocating funds/resources across the disability sector should be approached cautiously, bearing in mind the reported limitations.