Having viewed some of the highly edited videotaped material of Terri Schiavo and having seen other patients in a persistent vegetative state, I am not surprised that family members and others unfamiliar with this condition would interpret some of her apparent alertness and movement as meaningful.
A Likert Scale is a type of psychometric scale frequently used in psychology questionnaires. It was developed by and named after organizational psychologist Rensis Likert. Self-report inventories are one of the most widely used tools in psychological research.
On a survey or questionnaire, a typical Likert item usually takes the following format: Strongly disagree; Disagree; Neither agree nor disagree; Agree; Strongly agree; It is important to note that the individual questions that take this format are known as Likert items, while the Likert scale is the sum of several of these items.