Programs

A program is what a learner is taught or what behavior is tracked: for example, a skill such as matching colors, or a behavior to reduce. Programs belong to the learner's ABA episode and serve a long-term goal of the treatment plan. They carry on across plan versions, so amending a plan never resets them.

Program types#

Create a program#

1. In the learner's Plans of care section, open the Treatment programs tab and add a program, or import one from the library.
2. Name it and choose its type and the folder it is filed in.
3. Link the long-term goal it serves, chosen from the goals on the episode's plans. The program then follows that goal's current short-term goal.
4. Fill in the program fields you use: operational definition, objective, procedures, teaching procedures, materials, reinforcement schedule, barrier and generalization criteria. A behavior adds its topography, functions (attention, escape, tangible or automatic), function hypothesis, the parts of its definition (Onset, when an occurrence starts; Offset, when it ends; Examples and Non-examples) and evidenced by options.

The objective, operational definition, procedures and function hypothesis take formatting: bold, italic, underline and bulleted or numbered lists. Session notes, reports and printouts use the text without the formatting.

Click Add Procedure for each teaching procedure (for example Discrete trial teaching) and drag the rows into order; session notes offer them in that order when the program is worked. A behavior's evidenced by options feed the note the same way; with none of its own, the note offers your clinic's list from ABA settings. 5. Choose how it is measured, its prompt hierarchy and its mastery rules (see below). 6. Add its targets.

For a fixed ratio, variable ratio, fixed interval or variable interval reinforcement schedule, enter the ratio or interval (1 to 1,000). A continuous schedule needs no value.

A skill program can name the behavior programs it replaces, chosen from the same learner and episode.

Measurement#

Targets and steps#

Each program holds up to 100 targets, each with its own name and an optional baseline. A task analysis target lists its steps in order (up to 50), each with its own name. Drag targets and steps to reorder them. A behavior reduction program can be activated without targets; every other program needs at least one.

Prompt fading per step#

When Fade each step after (sessions) is set on a task analysis program, each step keeps its own prompt level. After a session ends, a step moves to the next level in the program's prompt list once it was scored independent or at or past its level in that many sessions in a row, and back one level after as many sessions in which it needed more help. A step with no level of its own starts from its target's level. The collector shows each step's level and records a Prompted score at it. Leave the field empty to use one level for the whole chain.

Baseline#

Open a saved program and choose the Baseline tab to record where the learner started before teaching or intervention began:

• Pre-treatment observations: each probe or observation, with its date, its value in the program's measure and an optional note. Add up to 50.
• Baseline value and Baseline date: the number the learner started from. Leave the value empty to use the average of the observations, and the date empty to use the latest observation's date.

Click Save Baseline. The baseline stays editable after data collection starts, since it is not a data setting. It starts the short-term goal generator for the goal the program serves, appears in the program list, and opens the monthly summary and report graphs.

Program list#

The list shows each program's type, measure, Baseline (value and date), Effective date (when it was activated), targets, trend, forecast and status. Pick a program type in the type filter above the list to see only Behavior reduction, Replacement, Skill acquisition, Caregiver or Staff competency programs; NeatPractice remembers your choice. The type column names a caregiver program's caregiver and a staff competency program's staff member. Once staff competency programs name staff members, a technician filter shows only one technician's programs.

Trend and forecast#

The program list shows how each program is moving:

• Trend reads the last 30 days of data against the program's goal. The arrow shows where the data goes and the color whether that is good: a behavior reduction program going down is green. Improving, Steady, Worsening, or Not enough data under three days of data.
• Stalled flags an active program with at least five days of data in the last 30 days that is steady or worsening.
• STO forecast estimates when the current short-term objective's target value is reached, from a straight line through the data since the objective began (at most the last 90 days). On track and Behind schedule compare that date with the objective's target date; hover to see the target date. No progress toward target means the data is not moving toward the target, and Criterion reached means the last value already meets it. It shows when the program is linked to a goal whose current objective has a criterion in the program's unit.

Both are decision aids computed from the data; neither changes the plan or mastery.

Draft and active#

A new program starts as a Draft. Change anything you like while it is a draft. When it is ready, Activate it: each target's status starts its dated history from that day.

While a program is active, a change to its measure, behavior functions or operational definition is kept as a dated revision, so you can always see what applied on a given day.

Change the measure#

An active program with data can switch to another measure from a date. On the Measurement tab, click Change Measure, pick the new measure and its settings, and the date it starts. The date can't fall before the program's last data point.

• Sessions started from then record the new measure; data recorded before keeps its own.
• The graph shows the earlier data as its own series, named with its measure, and a labeled line marks the change.
• When the earlier measure is in another unit (a percent against a count), the dialog and the graph say so, and mastery rules read only data in the current measure.
• The change is kept as a dated revision in the program's history.

Target statuses and phases#

Each target has a status. The first four are the phases its data is recorded in:

To move a target yourself, change its status and, if the program uses prompt levels, its current prompt level. Enter the date it takes effect (today in the learner's home location, unless you pick another) and an optional reason. Every move is a new dated row in the target's history; earlier rows are never edited. Each row shows who made it: User for a move by hand, Accepted suggestion for a mastery suggestion someone accepted, or System for an automatic move.

Prompt levels#

A program copies its prompt levels from a prompt hierarchy when you pick one, including NeatPractice's built-in Most to least and Least to most hierarchies (see Prompts and criteria). The copy is the program's own: edit, add, remove or recolor levels here without changing the hierarchy or other programs. A program holds up to 20 levels, and at most one counts as independent.

Mastery rules#

Mastery rules say when a target is ready to move on. Pick a criteria template to copy its rules into the program, then edit them; the program keeps its own copy. A program holds up to 10 rules. Each rule reads:

In phase, when the data is comparison value over frame N, then outcome.

For example, At least 80 for 3 consecutive sessions in intervention with Move to the next phase moves a target from intervention to generalization.

How the frames read the data:

• Only data recorded in the rule's phase counts, and missing data never counts.
• A rule limited to one setting reads only sessions held there, so a skill can be required to hold at home and at school before it moves on. A session's setting comes from its visit: telehealth, the service address it was held at, else the clinic. Imported data has no setting.
• A rule limited to a person or material reads only sessions tagged with it (see Start a session); case does not matter.
• Consecutive sessions looks at the latest N data points; all must pass.
• Consecutive days with data averages each day's points and looks at the latest N days that have data.
• Consecutive calendar days does the same, but the N days must follow each other with no gap.
• Average of the last N points averages the latest N points and compares the average.
• Consecutive errors is met when the latest N points all miss the comparison, which suits a rule that moves back a prompt level.
• Prompt moves follow the program's level order. Remove from sessions puts the target on hold.
• Return to intervention is the regression rule: pair it with Consecutive errors in generalization or maintenance, so a skill that slips goes back to teaching. It applies only to those two phases.
• Data a caregiver recorded never counts toward mastery, and probes count only when the program lets them.

Rules are checked in the order listed, and the first one that is met becomes a suggestion in the mastery queue. A target has at most one waiting suggestion at a time.

Preview against history#

Before you save new rules, click Preview Against History on the Prompts and criteria tab. NeatPractice reads each target's whole history against the rules as you edited them and shows what each would propose and the first date its data met the rule. Nothing is saved. To send what the saved rules propose to the mastery queue, open an active program and click Recalculate Mastery, then Send to Mastery Queue. A target that already has a waiting suggestion is skipped.

Auto-advance#

By default every mastery move is only a suggestion until a credentialed user accepts it. Turn on auto-advance on a program to apply its suggestions at once instead. Automatic moves show as System changes in the target's history and as Applied automatically in the learner's mastery history, and a credentialed user can revert them. A rule whose outcome is Hold for review always waits for a person, even with auto-advance on.

Maintenance schedule#

A target in maintenance does not need practice every session. Under Measurement, set the Maintenance schedule:

• Every session (the default).
• Every few sessions: the target comes back after the number of sessions you set, counted from its last maintenance data.
• Weekly, then monthly: the target comes back a week after its last probe until it has the number of weekly probes you set (4 if you leave it empty), then a month after.

Between returns, the target sits under Show Not Due in the data collector. You can still open it and score it.

Comments#

Use the Comments tab of a program to leave questions and notes for the team, about the whole program or one of its targets. Comments you have not seen yet are marked New, for you only: opening the tab marks them seen for you, not for everyone. The program list shows how many new comments a program has, and the plan's goal ladder adds them up for each long-term goal. Only the person who wrote a comment can remove it.

Copy from another learner#

To start from a program another learner already has, click Copy From Learner in the programs list, pick the learner and check the programs. Each copy arrives as a Draft with every program field, its prompt levels, its mastery rules, its auto-advance setting and its targets and steps, in folders of the same names. No data, statuses, goals or comments come along: link the copy to a goal on the new learner's plan yourself.

Folders#

File programs and behaviors in folders for domains and subdomains, nested up to five levels. Click New Folder to add one, and turn on Folders to see the programs as a tree under their folders instead of a list; NeatPractice remembers your choice. In the tree, a folder's menu adds a subfolder, renames or moves it, or deletes it. Deleting a folder moves what it holds up to the folder it sat in. Move to Folder on a program's menu files it elsewhere.

Archive a program#

Programs are never deleted. Archive a program you no longer run: it leaves the learner's program list and stops being checked for mastery, but its data and history stay. Show archived programs to find it again and Restore it with the status it had. An archived program opens read-only, its fields and targets locked, until you restore it.

Import from the library#

Bring programs in from your clinic's program library instead of building each one:

1. On the Treatment programs tab of the learner's Plans of care section, open the library import.
2. Search the library, filter by tag, preview items and check the ones you want.
3. Step through each chosen item to tailor it: its name, targets and baselines, measure and starting status, and the long-term goal it serves.
4. Optionally generate a short-term goal ladder for the item under a long-term goal of the learner's draft plan.
5. Submit.

Each item becomes a Draft program carrying every library field, its prompt levels and its mastery rules. It is filed under the same folder path it has in the library, and missing folders are added to the learner's plan. Everything is saved together, or nothing is. When you generate short-term goals and do not link a goal yourself, the program serves the long-term goal its new short-term goals went under. Later changes to the library item do not reach programs already imported.

Permissions#

Viewing programs and commenting needs permission to read ABA plans for the learner; creating, editing, activating, archiving, copying and moving targets needs permission to author ABA plans. Sending recalculated mastery to the queue needs permission to approve mastery. See Roles and permissions.