Adeline Macfarlane

Natalie Van Hamersveld

Christine Ro
Jackson Bonilla
Functional Assessment of Characteristics for Therapeutic Recreation, Revised (FACTR-R)

The Functional Assessment of Characteristics for Therapeutic Recreation, Revised

(FACT-R) was created by Peterson, Dunn and Carruthers (1983), but later revised by

Burlingame. Burlingame is also the primary author for the assessment manual (pg. 364). This

assessment was originally designed to be used by RTs who lacked formal training. The test

helps guide the recreation specialist in the identification of an appropriate direction for

treatment.They believed that they only needed to have basic knowledge on observing and

documenting functional skills to administer patients. This assessment was mainly intended for

adults in the VA, but is now used more broadly. Decision making ability were switched in the

revised version of the FACTR-R to place it where they are more clearly matched with.

The FACTR- R develops a broad standardized test mainly for the purpose to assist the

Recreational Therapist in identifying which domain a patient lacks in the most. It also provides

advice on how recreational therapy services can robust the insufficient domain of the client with

the help of other assessments to gain reliability and validity. It is not a test that is administer to

the client, rather utilized after observations and after reviewing the patient's medical record. In

other words, the assessment will develop a scope that will identify a category score only if one

or more categories are extremely low or high. This will help indicate what behaviors or skills

needs improvement.

The primary purpose of the Functional assessment of Characteristics for Therapeutic

Recreation, Revised is to ​determine clients needs related to his/her basic functional skills and
behavior​. It measures the cognitive, physical and emotional health for each client after

observing them in a variety of activities. This tool may be used for initial screening, but it is more

commonly used after a client goes through a variety of different activities for each of the

domains. This will help guide the Recreational Therapist to identify if any further testing is

needed. An intervention to the domain with the lowest score will be conducted to best suit the

clients needs. Through the variety of techniques and strategies like observation and

communication, a CTRS can provide useful and accurate information from their procedures. The

fundamental purpose to this assessment tool follows most tests measuring functional skills,

which is to identify the underlying causes of suboptimal performance, followed by the possible

actions to address a need.

The suggested levels this population is aimed for includes clients at Rancho Los Amigos:

Level 3 and above which describe patients needing total assistance, developmental Level 10

years and above, and clients that have reality orientation issues severe and above.

The assessment is used for all groups of people with the developmental levels over the age of

ten. This assessment is used after reviewing the clients medical chart and after observing the

client in group activities.

The length to administer and score this assessment should take around 20 minutes. This

test should be done after observing the client in many group activities and looking over the

clients chart. It measures the functional skills of the three behavioral categories physical,

cognitive, and social/emotional domains. This assessment identifies functional behaviors that

are related to leisure participation. Low scores in any of these three domains will indicate that

the client is in need of a clinical program intervention. These domains also represent the

illnesses and disabilities through the client’s ability, skills, and behaviors; which identifies the

functional limitations of the client’s leisure involvements.The leisure participation of a client is

dependent on functional behaviors of physical, cognitive, and social/emotional; therefore they

are the key areas for treatment and clinical services.

In scoring the assessment the therapist needs to follow standard procedure. To acquire

scores that are reliable, the therapist should define the item being measured with a descriptive

statement that is influenced from other assessments. In other words, all measuring items should

have a description and the definition of an item is highly recommend to fully identify domain

needs. The therapist marks an “X” next to the item description where it best describes the

patient’s functional behavior. After noting the items that best describe the patient, the therapist

should consider if the client would benefit from recreational therapy. If the answer is yes, an “X”

is marked in the category where the patient requires an intervention and can benefit from

recreation therapy assistance. After tallying up the yes’s and the no’s, the “no” responses

indicate functional ability and is not in need of recreational therapy. In other words, high scores

of no’s indicate good functional ability, where low scores indicate problems in functional areas.

Thus, the lower the scores of the patient, the greater the patient will benefit from recreational

therapy. This assessment can be obtained from Idyll Arbor, Inc, and found online at

www.IdyllArbor.com​.
 Works Cited

Burlingame, Joan, and Thomas M. Blaschko. ​Assessment Tools for Recreational

Therapy and Related Fields​. 3rd ed., Idyll Arbor, 2010.