The Power of Pragmatics: How to Assess Six Essential Communication Skills

Tuesday, July 19, 2022

Clinician doing an informal assessment of a child's pragmatics

How to Assess Six Essential Communication Skills

Pragmatic language is an interwoven set of linguistic skills people use to communicate in social contexts. It encompasses social, emotional, verbal, nonverbal, and other abilities. When people have trouble with pragmatic language, they may not understand other people’s intentions, or they may misread clues to how people are feeling. They may not fully grasp the unwritten rules that govern one-on-one or group conversations. Social and academic problems often follow.

Pragmatic language differences have been linked to autism, ADHD, developmental language disorder, social communication disorder, and mental health difficulties (Andres-Roqueta et al.; Ciray et al.) For that reason, clinicians and educators often look for differences and deficits when they’re conducting a diagnostic evaluation.

As you might expect, assessing pragmatic language is complicated. Evaluators often measure individual abilities such as

starting, maintaining, and ending conversations;
connecting with others through eye contact;
communicating with body language, facial expressions, and gestures;
giving information in a coherent and logical sequence;
taking turns speaking; and
understanding and signaling intent by varying speech rhythms and tone of voice.

As powerful as informal assessments can be, evaluators often include formal, direct assessments as part of a comprehensive evaluation. Research shows that combining formal and informal assessments is useful in designing targeted intervention plans (Wong et al.).

When evaluators look at pragmatic skills, they’re generally assessing two primary domains, plus a bridge that connects the two domains:

instrumental intent, which is the ability to recognize and communicate information
affective intent, which is the ability to recognize and communicate emotion
paralinguistic skills, which include the ability to decode and to use nonverbal signals that add meaning to people’s interactions

How to Assess Communication Skills: Six Essentials

Let’s look at six constructs measured in formal assessments—constructs that will help you determine where to focus interventions for a particular client.

Instrumental performance appraisal. This skillset governs your awareness of social routines. It’s how people judge whether someone is communicating in socially appropriate ways. Can you recognize, for example, when someone is responding to gratitude or making requests according to social norms? Often, test instruments ask people to choose between appropriate and inappropriate responses to social situations.
Social context appraisal. These skills involve correctly judging what other people’s feelings and intentions are. Social contexts are dynamic: People need to be able to notice changes in the setting, recognize when a conflict is arising, infer what other people are thinking, understand other people’s intent, show flexibility when routines change, and interpret irony, idioms, and other variables.
Paralinguistic decoding. This ability involves accurately reading “micro-expressions” that communicate meaning beyond what a person is saying. In fact, these nonverbal cues can help people understand when someone feels something completely contradictory to their verbal message. Well-developed paralinguistic skills help you respond appropriately to what people say—as well as what they don’t say.
Instrumental performance. This skillset affects your ability to communicate information according to social norms. Can you, for example, introduce someone politely? Can you ask for help, directions, or permission in socially appropriate ways? When an evaluator assesses instrumental performance, they’re looking at the ability to adequately and appropriately communicate as a means to an end.
Affective expression. This set of abilities controls how you express emotion as you’re communicating. Many everyday social situations require people to convey emotion. Someone might need to express regret, empathy, or gratitude in certain contexts. Affective expression is useful when you compliment, encourage, or support a friend or co-worker. These skills are vital to building and maintaining relationships.
Paralinguistic signals. This group of skills governs the use of nonverbal forms of communication. It includes using facial expressions, gestures, and changes in the speed, rhythm, and tone of your voice to add meaning to what you’re saying.

One assessment that allows you to measure all six constructs is the Clinical Assessment of Pragmatics (CAPs), which can be used with clients ages 7–18 years old. The CAPs is video based. Its primary advantage is that it presents complex real-life social scenarios. It asks people to describe what’s happening in each interaction and explain how they’d respond.

Research shows that real-life social scenarios, which can involve lots of sensory stimulation and overlapping interactions, can test the limits of comprehension in autistic people (Kotila et al.). Authentic, naturalistic interactions allow evaluators to track verbal and nonverbal responses and measure them against social norms.

Using formal and informal assessments to measure all six constructs can give you the data you need to identify your clients’ pragmatic skills, so you can tailor interventions to build their strengths and meet their specific pragmatic language needs.

For more on pragmatic skills assessment, view Unraveling the Complexities of Pragmatics. To learn more about the Clinical Assessment of Pragmatics (CAPs) and other pragmatic language assessments, visit our website or speak with a WPS assessment consultant.