The Washington Group Extended Set on Functioning

The WG-ES was designed to add additional functional domains to identify people with disabilities who are not captured by the WG-SS.  These additional domains include upper body mobility, psychosocial functioning, pain and fatigue. In addition, questions were added to capture more information on existing domains (e.g., walking a short distance and walking a longer distance) to better capture the continuum of functioning. 

The approach taken in the WG-ES is the same as that of the WG-SS, regarding the concept of disability and how to identify it in a quantitative survey. In fact, the WG-SS is embedded within the WG-ES in order to allow cross-over between the two sets of question.

Since the WG-ES includes multiple questions within each functional domain, a rubric is needed for combining those responses to devise the disability status for that domain. For example, what is the level of difficulty someone has in upper body mobility if they have a lot of difficulty lifting things, but little difficulty grabbing things?

The WG has undertaken analyses to address this question and, via various rounds of testing, has devised recommendations that are available on its website. In addition, Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, known as SPSS code for converting questions responses into disability identification is also available on the website.