Nesrhtens…..

Lerman et al has conducted an important study published in the current number of Journal of Behavioral Education on the “Accuracy of Teacher-Collected Descriptive Analysis Data: A Comparison of Narrative and Structured Recording Formats.”

As the authors correctly points out in the article behavior analyst are often dependent on parents, teachers and teacher-aides to collect data for descriptive analyses to indicate behavior function. And often these are the only data collected before designing interventions, so the accuracy of these data are crucial to effective treatment.

This study clearly indicates that the accuracy of descriptive analyses are dependent on the method used to collect them. And this study shows that teachers with typical teacher training collect the most accurate date using structured recording formats.

This results should of course be replicated, and further research in this area would be welcomed. But these results should get practitioners to as far as it´s possible to rely on structured recording formats in collecting data for descriptive analyses.

Related posts:

1. The use of electronic data collection systems in EIBI for children with autism.
2. Data collection in Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention – part 1
3. Data collection in ABA-programs for children with autism with iPhone