Counsel students whose behavior, school progress, or mental or physical impairment indicate a need for assistance, diagnosing students' problems and arranging for needed services.

“Counsel students whose behavior, school progress, or mental or physical impairment indicate a need for assistance, diagnosing students' problems and arranging for needed services.” is a supplemental task performed by Child, Family, and School Social Workers. Among the occupation's 23 rated tasks, workers place it 19th by importance (#5 most important). About 64% of workers say it is relevant to their job.

This is a single occupation-specific task statement from O*NET. The figures below describe how central the task is to the job and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the task will be automated.

Work activities this task rolls up to

O*NET groups concrete tasks into broader work activities shared across many occupations.

• Assist others to access additional services or resources. in Assisting and Caring for Others
• Advise others on educational or vocational matters. in Providing Consultation and Advice to Others

AI exposure

The OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rates this task E2. Exposure with tools — software built on top of a language model (not the model alone) could cut the time by at least half.

Exposure measures whether a model could meaningfully speed the task up — it is an estimate of overlap with model capabilities, not a measure of whether the work will be done by software. The study's intermediate score (β) for this task is 0.50. Automation potential label: T1.

How AI is actually used on this kind of task

The Anthropic Economic Index observes how people actually use AI on tasks like this one across millions of real conversations.

• 53% of that use is work-related
• Average autonomy of the AI: 3.6 (1–5; higher = more autonomous)
• 83% of interactions still needed a human in the loop

Observed AI use describes people choosing to use AI as a tool on this kind of task today. It is augmentation and assistance, not a measure of jobs replaced.

Other tasks in this occupation

• Place children in foster or adoptive homes, institutions, or medical treatment centers. · importance 4.7
• Maintain case history records and prepare reports. · importance 4.6
• Recommend temporary foster care and advise foster or adoptive parents. · importance 4.5
• Interview clients individually, in families, or in groups, assessing their situations, capabilities, and problems to determine what services are required to meet their needs. · importance 4.5
• Serve as liaisons between students, homes, schools, family services, child guidance clinics, courts, protective services, doctors, and other contacts to help children who face problems, such as disabilities, abuse, or poverty. · importance 4.4
• Develop and review service plans in consultation with clients and perform follow-ups assessing the quantity and quality of services provided. · importance 4.3
• Consult with parents, teachers, and other school personnel to determine causes of problems, such as truancy and misbehavior, and to implement solutions. · importance 4.2
• Counsel parents with child rearing problems, interviewing the child and family to determine whether further action is required. · importance 4.2
• Address legal issues, such as child abuse and discipline, assisting with hearings and providing testimony to inform custody arrangements. · importance 4.2
• Evaluate personal characteristics and home conditions of foster home or adoption applicants. · importance 4.2
• Arrange for medical, psychiatric, and other tests that may disclose causes of difficulties and indicate remedial measures. · importance 4.2
• Conduct social research. · importance 4.2
• Refer clients to community resources for services, such as job placement, debt counseling, legal aid, housing, medical treatment, or financial assistance, and provide concrete information, such as where to go and how to apply. · importance 4.0
• Counsel individuals, groups, families, or communities regarding issues including mental health, poverty, unemployment, substance abuse, physical abuse, rehabilitation, social adjustment, child care, or medical care. · importance 4.0

See all tasks on the Child, Family, and School Social Workers page.

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

• O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
• Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27) Anthropic
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

@misc{singulariki-task-238,
  title  = {Counsel students whose behavior, school progress, or mental or physical impairment indicate a need for assistance, diagnosing students' problems and arranging for needed services.},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27); “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/tasks/task-238}
}