Activity Card Sort (ACS)
What It Measures
The Activity Card Sort (ACS) is an interview tool that helps a person describe what they actually do with their time. Working with a therapist, the client sorts 89 photographs of people doing everyday activities into piles that reflect their own participation: things they still do, do less of, have given up, or never did. The photos cover instrumental tasks, low- and high-physical-demand leisure, and social activities.
Three versions match the setting: institutional, recovering, and community living. Scoring yields a picture of current activity level and the percentage of earlier activities retained, which is what makes the ACS useful after a stroke, cancer treatment, or spinal cord injury. Because it surfaces what a client has dropped and why, therapists use it to build goals around occupations the person values.
Further Reading
Additional Notes
Licensing Notes: The ACS is a proprietary, purchased assessment published by AOTA Press (Baum & Edwards, Activity Card Sort, 2nd ed.). They offer both member and nonmember pricing.
