Introduction

Here are some questions to ask yourself to better understand how well your communication with a person meets the needs and builds on the strengths of the person’s cognitive abilities. These questions are based on brain functioning and specific cognitive skills. However, you do not need to know anything about the brain or cognition to ask them. These are a few of many possible questions.

These questions are organized under ten general intervention concepts that address needs a person might frequently experience during interactions with other people.

The questions should be answered with a particular person in mind, since each person has different needs, strengths, and desires, and therefore, different ways of communicating. They should also be answered frequently enough to accommodate changes in this person’s needs, strengths, and desires.

Your answers to these questions can suggest effective intervention strategies (that is, support strategies) that adapt your communication with this person to help them more easily think, understand and respond to you, feel more comfortable and competent, and to successfully accomplish a task. These intervention strategies can meet this person’s cognitive needs, as well as rely on and build on this person’s cognitive strengths.

The “CAIS Communication Questions to Ask: Four Point Response Format" and the “CAIS Communication Questions to Ask: Yes/No Response Format” are two options to use for answering these questions. They each have the same questions. Choose the response format you prefer or that best fits the situation.

Suggestions of intervention strategies (that is, support strategies) tailored to your responses to these questions can be found in the Cognitive Abilities and Intervention Strategies (CAIS): Communication Intervention Strategies.

The complete CAIS Questions to Ask and the CAIS Intervention Strategies including all four parts (with the titles: 1. Cognitive Abilities; 2. Environment; 3. Communication; and 4. Task and Daily Routines), are available in this interactive format and as downloadable and printable pdf documents. These along with more detailed instructions, resources, and other information about the CAIS and related topics are on the Improving MI Practices website at https://improvingmipractices.org