Toglia's Dynamic Interactional Approach

cognition, environment, and task

What does the interactional approach say should be studied together as a dynamic system?

increasing self-awareness and use of cognitive strategies to increase occuaptional performance

What is the focus of the interactional approach?

• personal context: coping, emotion regulation, expectations, motivation, beliefs, values

• self-awareness

• processing strategies

person part of the interactional approach

• demands (required cognitive capacity and skills)

• transfer of learning (prcoessing strategies applied to multiple situations)

activity part of the interactional approach

ability to receive, elaborate, and monitor incoming information

• the flexibility to use and apply one’s analysis of information across task boundaries

• executive functioning (goals, planning, initiating, self-awareness, etc.)

function in the interactional approach

deficits in:

• processing strategies

• self-monitoring

• memory

• decreased generalization

dysfunction in the interactional approach

transfer (near → intermediate → far → very far)

using the same cognitive strategy over a variety of tasks or activities to get them to generalize it

near transfer (Ex. find phone number in phonebook)

taking a task that is similar to the original task to see if they can use that strategy on the next task

intermediate transfer (ex. find the butter in the refrigerator)

transfer the strategy to a task that is a little bit different than the original and near transfer task

• identify if strategies can be learned/implemented succesfully

• standardized assessments

• attend to self-perception beofre, during, and after

How can we evaluate using the interactional approach?

• identify potential problems

• self-prediction (what they think will be challenging)

• self-evaluation (how they think they did)

• self-questioning

• monitor time

• role reversal (OT demonstrates, client tells them what they are doing wrong - errors)

How can we intervene in self-awareness using the interactional approach?

• verbal mediation

• identify critical details (highlight, underline)

• stimuli blocking

• visual imagery

• categorization (of steps)

• breaking down the task

• rearranging items

• whole to specific look

How can we intervene in task performance using the interactional approach?