Special Offering: The Animated Movie Test: For Play Therpists and those Working with Older Children and Youth
With Dr. Karen Stagnitti
May 21, 2025 - 4pm to 7pm MT
$495.00 CAD (Includes Manual and Scoring Sheets)
3 Continuing Education Hours
Animated Movie Test: This assessment is for young people aged 8 to 15 years who struggle with social skills and learning and assesses a young person’s ability in pretend play. Pretend play is an ability that supports a young person to understand social situations, understand narrative, and context and the ability to problem solve and think creatively. Lags in pretend play ability or missing pretend play skills will also impact a young person’s metacommunication and metacognition. There are a number of assessments available for young children who present with neurodivergence but very few options to assess older children and youth. This is one of the very few play assessments that has been designed for this age group.
In this assessment, the young person is invited to be the director of their own movie. This is a movie that they create. They have 15 minutes to set up the movie set and 15 minutes to act out the movie. Most young people take less time than the maximum of 30 minutes. For 12 to 15 year olds, seven boxes of movie props are offered, and these are displayed on a tabletop. For those aged 8 to 11 years, the child is invited to choose a maximum of 4 prop boxes from the total of 7 boxes.
The assessment is videoed for authenticity, with a focus on the young person’s hands and movie props. The Animated Movie Test is scored from the video recording. The young person is supplied with a copy of their movie. Scoring covers Set up and Preparation (5 scores) and Movie items (7 scores). The Movie items are scored using a Likert scale from 0 to 8. The Movie items assessed are: ability to sequence events, generation of problems, initiation of ideas, emotional engagement in the movie, understanding of character roles, verbalisation and use of symbol representations. From an interpretation of the scoring for Set Up and Preparation and Movie items, appropriate play therapy and therapeutic pathways can be provided
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
1. Demonstrate how to administer the Animated Movie Test
2. Demonstrate how to score the Animated Movie Test
3. Analyze and interpret the Animated Movie Test
4. Explain play therapy approaches based on knowledge of the young person's performance on the Animated Movie
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR:
Karen Stagnitti is an Emeritus Professor in the School of Health and Social Development at Deakin University, Australia. Her previous position was Professor, Personal Chair at the School of Health and Social Development at Deakin University, Victoria, Australia. Her area of research is children's play. She graduated with a Bachelor degree in Occupational Therapy from the University of Queensland. In 2003 she was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy from LaTrobe University, Australia. For 25 years she worked in early childhood intervention programs in community-based or specialist settings as part of a specialist paediatric multidisciplinary team. For 26 years she has worked in universities as a researcher and teaching academic. At Deakin University she also ran a research lab on Learn to Play Therapy seeing families and children.
Karen has over 120 national and international papers published as well as 36 book chapters, 9 books, and 4 play assessments. Her norm referenced standardized play assessment, the Child-Initiated Pretend Play Assessment was revised in 2024. Throughout the year, she is invited to present her work on the play ability of children nationally and internationally.