ABA assessments

The Assessments tab of the chart's Documentation section holds everything an analyst gathers before writing the assessment report: the assessment itself and its sessions, instrument scores, functional behavior assessments (FBAs), functional analyses, preference assessments and the reinforcer list.

Start an assessment#

1. On the learner's chart, choose Clinical > Documentation, open the Assessments tab and click New Assessment.
2. Choose the ABA episode, the kind (Initial assessment or Reassessment), the assessment authorization it draws on and the start date.

The start date must fall inside the assessment authorization's dates; NeatPractice says so when it does not.

The first assessment in your clinic also adds the scores-only instruments for common licensed ABA assessments to Setup > Outcome instruments, ready to record.

Book and count sessions#

Each assessment counts the sessions spent on it: observing the learner, interviewing caregivers, scoring and writing the report. Open Sessions on the assessment row:

• Book Session schedules a new session from the assessment: the date, start and end times, the place, the provider, who it is with (Face to face with learner, Face to face with caregiver or Non-face-to-face) and notes. It goes on the schedule like any appointment, with the same booking checks, and books the code the assessment authorization approved (for example the reassessment code your payer uses). The date must fall inside the authorization. Once the appointment starts, its visit counts toward the assessment.
• Link Visit counts a visit that already exists on the episode.

You can also book from the schedule: when you book a new appointment of an assessment type (one with Assessment turned on in Appointment types) for one learner, the Assessment section lets you add it to one of the learner's open assessments or Start a new assessment, dated the appointment's day on the learner's authorization.

Assign analysts and caregiver reviewers#

Someone who manages ABA settings (usually the clinic administrator) chooses Team on the assessment row:

• Analysts: each analyst assigned can have Edits (changes the assessment, its sessions and its report) and Signs (signs the report). Once any analyst is assigned, only those who edit, and the administrator, can change the assessment; everyone else sees it read-only.
• Caregiver reviewers: the learner's contacts marked as caregivers, guardians or session signers who review and sign the report.

When the report's author signs, every other signing analyst and each chosen caregiver gets a signature slot on the report. Analysts sign theirs from their pending signatures; caregivers sign on the clinic device. The Team dialog and the report show who has signed.

Void an assessment opened in error#

Choose Void on the assessment row and give the reason. The assessment stays on the chart marked Voided with its reason, it no longer changes, and its sessions stay as visits whose charges no longer wait for a report. An assessment that already has a report, or a session that has billed, cannot be voided.

Record instrument scores#

Licensed instruments are kept as scores only: you enter the totals, levels and domain scores from the protocol you scored, never its items. Record them in the Outcome measures section of the tab like any other instrument, choosing who answered (for example a caregiver or a teacher). See Progress and Outcome instruments.

Growth versus dosage#

Growth versus dosage lists, for each instrument the learner was scored on, the change in its main score between one administration and the next beside the hours of ABA sessions held between them (voided sessions and a second observer's sessions do not count), and the change per 10 hours. Use it to judge whether growth keeps pace with the treatment delivered. Next due is six months after the last administration; a Due badge shows once that date arrives. An instrument given once shows only its due date.

Functional behavior assessments#

Click New FBA for each behavior of concern:

• Behavior and, when it has one, the learner's behavior reduction Behavior program.
• Interview: NeatPractice's own questions for caregivers and staff. Leave any you did not ask empty.
• Scatter counts: how many times the behavior happened in a given hour of a weekday.
• Function ratings: the percent per function (attention, escape, tangible, automatic, other) from a rating scale, shown as bars as you type. Leave a function empty when it was not rated. Reports can show these as a table or a graph.
• Hypothesis: the functions (attention, escape, tangible, automatic or other) and a hypothesis statement.

The ABC records column counts ABC data recorded for the behavior during sessions. Apply to Program copies the functions and hypothesis onto the behavior program, where the behavior intervention plan reads them; the change is dated like any other program change.

Functional analyses#

A functional analysis tests what keeps a behavior going by running short sessions of different conditions and comparing how often the behavior happens in each. Click New Analysis in Functional analyses:

• Behavior, the learner's behavior reduction Behavior program when it has one, and the Measure: Responses per minute (count the behavior) or Percent of intervals (score whether it happened in each interval).
• Conditions: a new analysis starts with Play (control), Attention, Escape (demand), Tangible and Alone (ignore). Remove the ones you do not run, rename them, or click Add Condition for a custom one (up to eight).
• Sessions: add one row per session in the order you ran them, with its condition, date, minutes and the count (or, for percent of intervals, the intervals scored and observed). The row's place in the list is its session number; drag a row to fix the order, or duplicate it to start the next one. Sessions can also be run from a data session (see Run a functional analysis condition).
• Conclusion: the functions the analysis showed, a conclusion statement and Completed on once it is final.

The Multielement graph below the list draws one line per condition with the session number along the bottom, and shows each condition's mean beside it. Choose View Graph on a row (or pick the analysis above the graph) to see another one. A test condition that stays well above play points to that function. Click Enlarge at the top right of the graph to see it over the whole screen, or Export to save it as a PDF or PNG image with each condition's mean and the concluded functions listed under it.

An assessment report that covers the analysis's assessment lists it in Behaviors and functions: the condition means sit in the Functional analysis column, and once the analysis is completed with functions, its functions and conclusion take the place of the program's own.

Apply to Program appears once a completed analysis is linked to a behavior program. It copies the concluded functions and the conclusion onto the program, the same place an FBA's hypothesis goes.

Preference assessments and the reinforcer list#

Click Record Assessment, choose the method (Paired stimulus, Multiple stimulus without replacement or Free operant) and list each item with the times it was chosen and offered. For free operant, the fields become Seconds engaged and Seconds observed.

Items rank by the share of times they were chosen. Recording ranks them into the Reinforcer list, which session notes offer; Remove takes an item off until a later assessment ranks it again.