ABA
ABA treatment plan
Write an applied behavior analysis treatment plan with domains, long-term goals and short-term goal ladders, recommend weekly hours, amend it as a new version and record caregiver acknowledgments.
An applied behavior analysis (ABA) treatment plan sets what a learner works on and how much service you recommend. Inside ABA screens the patient is called the learner; it is the same patient record as everywhere else in NeatPractice. These pages need your clinic to hold the ABA module (see Disciplines).
An ABA treatment plan is a plan of care written on the learner's ABA episode of care. It is drafted, signed, printed and checked against daily notes like any plan of care. The learner's Treatment programs tab adds what ABA needs on top: plan versions, the goal ladders, the programs that serve each goal, the recommended weekly hours and caregiver acknowledgments.
Start a plan#
- Open the learner's chart, choose Clinical > Plans of care and open the Treatment programs tab. When the learner has more than one ABA episode, pick the episode first.
- Start a new plan and choose the Document date.
- If you have no provider profile for ABA, choose the Provider the plan is for. The same choice appears when you amend a plan.
The plan opens in the document window with NeatPractice's ABA treatment plan template, which is added to your clinic the first time anyone writes an ABA plan. Its sections cover the background and assessment summary, caregiver involvement and training, and coordination of care with transition and discharge criteria. Write the sections, plan terms and goals as on any plan of care, then sign it.
Writing a plan needs permission to author ABA plans for that learner, for example as a behavior analyst on the learner's caseload. See Roles and permissions.
Domains, long-term goals and short-term goals#
The plan is organized from the top down:
- Domain: the area of the goal, such as communication or daily living. Set it in each goal's Domain field.
- Long-term goal (LTG): what the learner should reach by the end of the plan.
- Short-term goals (STOs): the steps toward one long-term goal, in order. Each sits under its long-term goal.
- Programs: the teaching or behavior programs that serve a long-term goal. See Programs.
Each goal can carry a structured criterion instead of only free text: a direction (increase or decrease), a start
and target value, a unit (percent, occurrences, per hour, minutes or seconds), the period the value is measured over
(session, day, week or month), how long it must hold, and an optional prompt level. NeatPractice writes the sentence from
those fields, for example Increase from 40% to 60% per session for 3 consecutive sessions at the Verbal prompt level. You never type the sentence yourself, and editing the fields rewrites it.
A goal can also carry item codes from an outside assessment protocol the goal works on, typed the way the protocol names them. Turn on Assessment item codes under the goal and enter the codes separated by commas. The goal ladder shows them under the goal.
The goal ladder#
The plan shows each long-term goal with its short-term goals in order, the programs that serve it and, for each short-term goal, whether it was met and when. The current short-term goal is the first one not yet met. When a short-term goal is met, the next one becomes current. A goal also shows how many program comments are new to you.
Edit short-term goals together#
On a draft plan, click Edit STOs on a long-term goal to open all its short-term goals at once. Reword them, set target dates, drag them into order and click the duplicate icon on one to start the next step from it (the copy keeps its criterion). Save Objectives saves the whole list together; closing without saving drops your changes and duplicates.
Generate short-term goals#
Instead of writing each short-term goal by hand, generate a ladder of them under a long-term goal of a draft plan.
- On the long-term goal, open the short-term goal generator.
- Choose how the ladder climbs (see the table below) and enter the amount.
- Enter the start value and target value (they must differ; percent values run from 0 to 100), the unit, the value period, how many periods it must hold and, if you want, a prompt level. When a program serving the goal has a baseline, the start value begins at it.
- Edit the wording template. The preview updates as you type.
- Add the ladder to the plan.
| Mode | Amount you enter | How the steps are made |
|---|---|---|
| Number of steps | 1 to 20 | Equal steps from the start value to the target. |
| Step amount | Any amount above 0 | Each step adds (or subtracts) the same amount. |
| Percent change | Any percent above 0 | Each step changes the previous value by that percent. |
The last step always lands exactly on the target value. A ladder can have at most 20 steps; if your step is too small to reach the target in 20, NeatPractice asks for a larger one. New short-term goals go after the long-term goal's existing ones, and the plan as a whole holds at most 40 goals.
Wording tokens#
The template is the text of each generated goal. These tokens fill in per step:
| Token | Fills with |
|---|---|
{step} | The step number, starting at 1 |
{value} | The step's target with its unit, such as 60% or 3 occurrences |
{number} | The step's target as a bare number, such as 60 |
{period} | The value period, such as session or week |
{duration} | How many periods it must hold |
{duration_period} | The period it must hold for, such as session or day |
{prompt_level} | The prompt level, or any when none is set |
{criterion} | The whole generated sentence for the step |
The default template is just {criterion}. With a start of 40 percent, a target of 60 percent and two steps, the
template STO {step}: reach {value} per {period} gives STO 1: reach 50% per session and
STO 2: reach 60% per session.
Recommended services#
On a draft plan, list the weekly hours you recommend for each procedure code, with an optional note. Codes come from your clinic's procedure codes. List each code once, up to 20 codes, with up to 80 hours a week each (two decimals at most). Pick the Location where the service is mainly delivered and, if you want, turn on Split the hours by weekday to say how the hours fall across the week; the weekdays must add up to the hours per week. The list shows each service in 15-minute units per week and per authorization period: the dates of the approved treatment authorization in force when the plan starts, or the plan's own dates when there is none. Signing keeps the recommended hours and the learner's programs with the signed plan as they stood that day; the list no longer changes on that version.
Amend a plan (new version)#
A signed plan never changes. To change it, amend it:
- On the Treatment programs tab, choose Amend on the current signed version.
- Choose the document date of the amendment.
NeatPractice creates a new draft version with the same template, sections, period, terms, recommended services and goals. Short-term goals met since the earlier version was signed come across already marked met. Edit the draft and sign it.
- The latest signed version drives sessions. Until you sign the amendment, sessions keep using the version before it, so a draft never changes what technicians see.
- Older versions stay readable. Pick any version from the version list to open it.
- A version can be amended once. While its amendment is a draft, finish or discard that draft before starting another; once the amendment is signed, amend the newer version instead.
Programs belong to the episode, not to one version, so they carry on across amendments.
Caregiver acknowledgments#
After a plan version is signed, record that a caregiver reviewed it:
- Open the signed version and choose to add an acknowledgment.
- Enter who acknowledged it (for example
Jordan Example) and their relationship to the learner. - Optionally have them draw a signature on the clinic device. Leave it blank to record a spoken or written acknowledgment without one.
Each version lists its acknowledgments with the date. They add up over time; none is edited or removed. Behavior intervention plans take acknowledgments the same way (see Behavior intervention plans).