ABA
Teaching Ideas
Data sheets, Templates, Skills trackers and Data
Please note that there are links to other websites on this page
Tracking sheets
Excellent ABLLs dedicated website. Click on the link below.
Tracking sheet sample
I have personalised tracking sheets for my son's program and the samples are as below. You must only put in targets that are priority for your child. E.g. If you live in the UK, basement is probably not a priority in rooms of the house. If you download these documents you can re-label and create your own.
I tend to use the excel document now as I prefer to have all programs in one document and not to store paper copies.
Let's talk about taking data!
What you are doing with your data?
1- Analysing it? (so you can move on targets, work on barriers to learning or to look at how targets are being taught when your child is finding targets difficult to master)
2- Recording progress? (Cumulative data)
3- Looking at patterns of behaviour? (ABC data)
These are the 3 main reasons why we take data in our program.
A few tips:
1- Ask your therapists how they prefer to take data in different settings. Our therapists prefer taking trial by trial data on a small piece of paper in school and then transferring it to the clipboard when they get home. One of our tutors told us that they roll a small piece of paper on a pencil and it comes out of their pocket whenever they need to write. Trial by trial data is not easy and school shadows are amazing!
2- Only take data if you are doing something with it.
3- Take data quickly and efficiently so it doesn't interfere with the timing of the session. E.g. Use codes instead of writing long words (1 or I for Independent and 4 or FP for full prompts).
4- Be clear as to what the purpose of taking your data is.
5- Stop taking data when it's no longer needed
e.g. ABC for a specific behaviour which has already been analysed and a pattern found
or
if the purpose for data taken of a particular aspect of the program has been accomplished (e.g. establish all main Mands and the prompt level for a number of reinforcing activities).
6- Have therapist friendly data sheets and discuss where/how they can be improved.
7- Take clear data. 'FP' for full prompt or 'I' for independent is clear but 'good', '?' and 'x' does not tell you anything useful.
8- Everyone in the team needs to be fully trained understand mastery criteria and prompt levels. This will help them take data consistently and accurately so you avoid blanks, 'good', '?s' and 'Xs'.
9- Keep your data flowing and work as a team.
Look at your data before starting your session. Look at any missing data from the previous day and prioritise these in your probing.
I will post on cumulative data (graphing to show progress) soon :)
Visit the Lovaas website for more information:
Cumulative data graphing- Youtube video
Excel graphing ABA style. With cumulative data, you add in targets as your child masters so the line will always go up or stay still if the child hasn't mastered targets in a given week. The line never goes down (e.g. Week 1- 2, week 2- 5, week3- 11, week 4- 11). Instead of recording days, you might want to record number of targets per week (e.g. Week ending 06/06/2014, rather than 'Day 1, 2...'). You can right click on the different plot areas to amend it.
Have fun trying it!
Recording data electronically
I use electronic templates to record my data as I have found the hard copies difficult to maintain and fiddly when you need to find programs.
I have created my skills trackers in excel (available for downloading below) and as my son masters targets each week I add them to the skills tracker in one go. You can create programs in advance there and print index cards for targets much more easily too. I can sit and watch TV whilst updating the mastered targets without the need need to access folders too.
I put all current programs in different worksheets in ABLLs order. The document below will provide you with different templates. When programs are completed I move them over to a 'completed programs' spreadsheet and create the cumulative data to go with it.
In excel you can combine programs across skill areas in the same data sheet and monitor targets more easily as well. See Feature, Function and Class sheets in the document.
You can also filter different categories of targets (e.g. matching word to picture- numbers, shapes, colours, CVCs or plural- regular, irregular). You can e-mail the lot to your consultant if they need to have a look too or access it at a meeting more easily from your lap top.
Information is always at hand when we need to report progress or difficulties.
How do you record your data?
If you have started with hard copies you can always start from where you are now, if you feel that this works for you.
Links to on-line resources
Lead therapist tick list
This form has been a useful communication tool between myself and our lead therapist. If carers work or have limited time, think about giving it a try. You cal always amend the attached document to fit in with your program structure.
Data probe template
We use an electronic data probe template which we update weekly, instead of writing targets all over again on a blank sheet. This saves us a great deal of time as we only change targets that have been mastered and update the ones which we are still teaching according to the level of prompting. We do the updates after probing has been done on Friday morning, in readiness for a new 'Monday to Friday' week. After updating the electronic version, we print it off and therapists complete it throughout the week after their session, using codes which vary from full prompt to independent. We have also incorporated a manding sheet at the end as it is easier to keep the data on one data sheet, rather than have different sheets to complete on the clipboard.