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Collecting and analyzing data is a crucial component of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). Clinicians and practitioners need data to understand the function of behaviors. They can then use this data to create hypotheses and create intervention strategies.
The primary method for assessing behavior change is through repeated data collection (Najdowski, A. C., et al., 2009). The exact data collection method you utilize to track, analyze, and record all of this data will depend upon your unique goals. For example, teaching new social skills may require different data collection methods than changing education behaviors.
Luckily, there are many data collection methodologies out there to assist ABA professionals in leveraging continuous data collection to achieve positive changes.
Clinicians, therapists, and specialists all use data to create actionable behavioral support strategies. Whether you want to decrease negative behaviors (e.g., tantrums, violence, aggression, etc.) or increase positive behaviors (e.g., socialization, sharing, etc.), you need to benchmark the effectiveness of your program. Over the course of your time with a child, you may form multiple hypotheses and adjust your program strategy. That’s fine! In fact, the ability to rapidly shift goals and actions based on incoming data is precisely what makes ABA so incredibly effective at provoking long-term behavioral changes.
But, ensuring that your programs are effective can’t be accomplished with a single data set. There are simply too many variables. Luckily, over the years, ABA specialists and researchers have devised a plethora of data collection methods to help you gather the type of data you need to progress.
The frequency/event and rate recording method involves counting and recording the number of times a behavior happens within a specific time frame. This can be how many times a child bangs their fist against the desk or how many times a student bites their pencil eraser. Frequency/event and rate recording can help clinicians and professionals determine how problematic an issue is and the best course of action to take for a specific behavioral issue. It can also help prove the value (or inadequacy) of treatment models over time.
It’s important to remember that frequency/event and rate recordings are only useful for situations where you wish to measure an event with a distinct beginning and end. It should also only be used to measure behaviors that you can accurately count (i.e., behaviors that are slow enough to measure with precision) and behaviors that only last for a small amount of time (given the window of measurement.) So, if you are working with a child who typically gets aggressive for up to 45 minutes, trying to measure how many times they get aggressive in a 3-hour time frame isn’t going to give you an accurate picture of behavioral changes throughout a therapy model.
