CLEAR Communication

Effective Listening and Interactive Communication Scale

The Effective Listening and Interactive Communication Scale (ELICS) is a formal self-assessment tool which is designed to measure the listening and communication behaviours of healthcare providers. The ELICS self-assessment was developed by a multidisciplinary team of researchers and clinicians from the Bloorview Research Institute and TVCC.

Two women sitting on a couch talking. — Photo by Christina Morillo. Pexels.com

ELICS

The ELICS is a formal assessment tool for clinicians to rate their own listening skills. It has 24 items based on the four ELICS listening scales:

Receptive Listening - mindful attention to understand the client’s situation
Exploratory Listening - dialogue to elicit information and establish clarity about issues
Consensus-oriented Listening - brainstorming and explanation of rationales to establish shared understanding and jointly determined goals, and
Action-oriented listening - supporting and enabling clients to establish actions toward desired outcomes.

The ELICS measures the extent to which clinicians display listening skill behaviours using a 7-point performance scale (where 1 = not at all, and 7 = to a very great extent).

The measure takes approximately 10 to 15 minutes to complete.

The ELICS measure is available for free download through Learnworlds. You will be required to set up a Learnworlds account (free of charge), and provide your email address.

Download the ELICS

Two Women Sitting on a Couch Chatting. — Photo by Cliff Booth. Pexels.com

ELICS-AR

The ELICS-AR is a formal observational assessment tool for observers to rate clinicians’ displayed listening skills. It has 24 items arranged by the four ELICS listening scales: Receptive Listening, Exploratory Listening, Consensus-oriented Listening, and Action-oriented listening. The ELICS-AR measures the extent to which clinicians display listening skill behaviours, using the same 24 items as the ELICS, rated on a 5-point performance scale.

The ELICS-AR measure is available for free download through Learnworlds. You will be required to set up a Learnworlds account (free of charge), and provide your email address.

Download the ELICS-AR

4 Clinical Listening Stances Captured in the ELICS

Tap, click, or scroll through these slides using your mouse or trackpad.

Receptive Listening

Exploratory Listening

Consensus-Oriented Listening

Action-Oriented Listening

Receptive Listening

Mindful attention to understanding the client’s situation

Involves being open to the client’s input, experiences, beliefs, and life situations
Paying attention to what is not being said
Being present in the moment
Using both verbal and nonverbal means to show that they truly understand what the speaker is saying
Intent is to gain a full understanding of the client’s situation, concerns, and expectations regarding intervention, and to acknowledge the legitimacy of their concerns

Exploratory Listening

Dialogue to elicit information and establish clarity about issues

A more active form of listening involving information sharing, dialogue, questioning, encouraging, and challenging of clients
The clinician shares information related to the client’s worries and concerns, and encourages the client to ask questions
The intent is to clarify the nature of the issues, thereby helping the client move toward desired change
- Clients sometimes have diffuse ideas about what they want to see change or are ‘stuck’ and unable to more forward

Consensus-Oriented Listening

Explanation of rationales to establish shared understanding, jointly determined goals

Specific strategies include brainstorming with the client about how to proceed, checking for clarity about what has been said and agreed upon, and explaining reasons and rationales for what is proposed
Co-creating a sense of mutual meaning through a process of affirming or repairing one another’s interpretations
Intent is to establish a shared perspective or understanding regarding decisions and jointly determined goals

Action-Oriented Listening

Supporting and enabling clients to plan and establish actions toward desired outcomes

Directed towards implementation or outcome-oriented aspects of practice
Moves the intervention process along by engaging the client in prioritizing issues and determining next steps
- Thereby facilitating the client’s sense of control regarding the nature, direction, and pace of the intervention

Affiliations:

Stay In Touch!

Joining our CLEAR Communication Mailing List is the best way to stay connected and informed.

You will receive emails when new ELICS tools and resources are released. We may occasionally send other listening-related resources and research.

You can unsubscribe at any time.

Join Our Mailing List