The Supports Intensity Scale® (SIS®) is a progressive, state-of-the-art assessment tool that helps professionals evaluate practical support requirements of a person with an intellectual disability, and plan services accordingly. Currently adopted by the numerous states and countries, SIS is the only tool to provide a clear and comprehensive picture of what the client wants and what supports it takes to fulfill goals and aspirations. 

The SIS was developed by 10 disability experts over five years and consists of an 8-page Interview and profile form that tests support needs in 57 life activities and 28 behavioral and medical areas. A 128-page User’s Manual explains how to administer the scale. 

The SIS measures life activities in home living, community living, lifelong learning, employment, health and safety, social activities, and protection and advocacy.  The scale ranks each activity measured according to frequency (none, at least once a month), amount (none, less than 30 minutes), and type of support (monitoring, verbal gesturing).

Key features and benefits

• Gives you direct, reliable, and valid measurement of supports requirements in 57 life activities based on 7 areas of competence including the areas of home living, community living; life-long learning; employment; health and safety; social interaction; and protection and advocacy. 
• Provides a clear ranking of support needs in 15 medical and 13 behavioral conditions.
• Has excellent psychometric properties, is empirically based, and extensively field tested.
• Supplements adaptive behavior measures by telling you what practical supports are required to perform a task (Adaptive measures identify the skills an individual has to do a task).
• Presents an overall supports needs score and a percentile ranking of persons needs based on national field test data.
• Gives you a graphic plot of information recorded so that you have a visual display of areas of high intensity vs. low intensity of supports needs.
• Allows feedback from respondent and those most close to him/her so that you have a clear picture of person’s needs, preferences, and goals for life.
• Provides a solid knowledge base on respondent to develop individualized, person-centered plans.
• Assists with resource allocation and financial planning.
  Only scale to align conceptually with the current, supports-based system of defining and diagnosing mental retardation.
• Leads to long-term independence and enhanced quality of life of persons with intellectual disabilities.

Comes with free copy of Guidelines for Interviewing People with Disabilities. 

*Purchase of SIS materials is limited to qualified users of the tool. If you have questions about SIS assement qualifications, contact us.