ACTIVITY ANALYSIS :
An activity analysis does generally two things. First, it breaks the activity down into its individual tasks. For instance, to make tuna the steps might be: 1. retrieve tuna from pantry, mayo from frig 2. open can of tuna 3. drain water from tuna into sink (using lid to stop tuna from falling) 4. empty tuna into mixing bowl. 5. open mayo 6. measure certain amount of mayo and add to tuna in mixing bow 7. mix thoroughly. So, that's the first part.
The second part allows you to determine what skills are needed to do the whole activity. You do it by thinking about each task and identifying what skills are needed to complete it. My recommendation is to look at this point at what the physical, sensory, cognitive, and social requirements are to do each task. In real life, clinicians would go into much more detail. in the tuna example, just for the physical abilities it would be something like: being able to get to the pantry, open the door and reach the shelf; bilateral skills to use can opener, drain water; hand strength to open mayo; endurance for mixing; you might also comment on whether it's done in sitting or standing. You would also want to qualify how much of each skill is needed. For instance, the amount of hand strength to open the mayo jar is different than to lift a stack of books. In the clinic we would qualify each thing by pounds, time, etc. At this point, you're not expected to do that.
So, then I'd continue with sensory, cognitive, social, etc.
What this will eventually allow you to do is to identify the areas that the person finds difficult and then address those areas by changing the way the task is done or the tools that are used. That way our first repsonse to someone isn't, "oh I guess you can't have tuna anymore" it's "let's see what you can do and figure out a new way to do the rest."
- Anita