Pragmatics Profile of Everyday Communication Skills (revised edition)

The Pragmatics Profile is a questionnaire practitioners can use to interview parents, teachers or other carers. It provides insight into how a child typically communicates in day-to-day interactions in familiar settings with people they know well. It provides structured qualitative information.

The Pragmatics Profile includes:

• a manual which provides background information on the development and construction of the Pragmatics Profile
• full administration instructions
• a set of photocopy masters (comprising the two profiles)
• the record sheet
• a summary sheet
• brief instructions sheet.

There are two profiles for children:

• pre-school children from the age of nine months

• school-age children up to the age of 10 years.

There is also the adult profile available which can be used for secondary children.

Age range

9 months to 10 years

Adult form available for use with secondary age children and post-16 students.

Who can use it?

All those with a professional interest in the development of language and communication.

What does it tell us?

The Pragmatics Profile for each of the two age ranges falls into four sections:

1. Communicative Functions: looks at the range of communicative functions that a child may express.
2. Responses to Communication: looks at how the child responds and reacts to communication from others.
3. Interaction and Conversation.
4. Contextual Variation: looks at how the child’s communication varies depending on context, such as different places, people, times of the day and topics.

The profile can be used to monitor progress as the interviews can be carried out at agreed intervals.

Examples of targets or interventions that may be put in place after the assessment include the following.

• Family setting aside regular time for interaction and conversation where parents give undivided attention to the child following their interests and initiations. The best time for this may be indicated by the section on context variation.
• A social skills group exploring subjects such as getting someone to listen, thanking someone, asking for help, expressing emotions, how to say “no” and what to do if conversations go wrong.
• Building on a particular strength and extending to another place (for example, extending expression skills identified in the home to school).
• Setting specific targets such as asking for clarification from a teacher when the child is unsure about something.
• Providing ways of expanding the child’s opportunity for communication in different situations and with different people.

Pros

• Enables the professional to build up a comprehensive picture of a child's communicative skills in a variety of everyday situations.
• Gives teachers an idea of how a child communicates and their communication skills inside and outside school.
• Relatively easy to carry out and only takes 30 minutes to do.
• Involves parents and helps them recognise the subtle ways their child communicates across a range of situations. Shows parents the areas their child may be having unnoticed difficulties. Helps parents appreciate pre-linguistic attempts at communication as well as focusing on talking.
• The assessment is independent of communication approach.

Cons

• By its nature, this approach does not lend itself to numerical analysis. As such, there are no norm-referenced scores to compare with others.

Is there a cost?

No.

Where can I access it?

Download the Pragmatics Profile (Complex Needs and Advanced Training website).