Welcome to the Misfit Behaviorist Podcast. Join your hosts, Audra Jensen and Caitlin Beltran, here to bring you evidence based strategies with a student centered focus. Listen weekly for practical and functional advice, along with actionable tips tailored for ABA professionals, special education teachers, and anyone dedicated to supporting students with diverse needs. Ready? Let's get started.
Caitlin Beltran: Welcome back to the Misfit Behaviorists. So today, Audra and I are going to be chatting about data collection hacks, or in other words, ways to make your data collection easier. So I actually have two kind of themes in mind, but I want to start, Audra, by asking you, when you are consulting or when you're, you know, talking with classrooms that are taking scale data, are they, are those classrooms primarily collecting data on IEP goals every day or not everyday?
Audra Jensen: It really depends on the situation. So I've had classrooms, I had one classroom, what was a fully ABA classroom. So you were staffed two to one, they were running DT sessions and stations throughout. And so they were taking daily data like you would in a clinical setting. in fact, that, that classroom, I was able to go in and set up from scratch, which was really nice, but then over the course of the next few years, they lost budget, they lost paras in those classrooms and they added students and you couldn't contain that level of control.
And so we would move to, you know, now we're having instead of a one to two ratio with it, there may be a para of an adult with four or five students. And so that may be we'd either have you know, twice a week data or once a week data or one student every day was another one that we'd do. So it kind of depends on the situation.
Caitlin Beltran: Right. I think that's what I found, too. I think for the classrooms where they're not the smaller group or self contained, they're rarely taking data every single day. But when we do have, whether you call it your self contained or ABA or autism classroom, when I first started, they were ready to take the data every day.
And then I think in my mind, it was like, why not? Because like you said, they still, you know, to this day have more of that two to one ratio. and it wasn't until last year that I, I was the one that was like, I think this is too much data because we're taking trial by trial data every single day on every single kid.
On every single goal and no one was complaining, not the teachers, not the paras, but I was getting all the data and I thought, yeah, I have to do something with it. and I remember and the other thing is too I also feel like it's the more you do the training and the more you have the staff by and it sometimes it's like Be careful what you wish for because I came from a setting at a district school.
We were practically one to one. I mean, when I was teaching, it was I was always ingrained. If you're not taking data, like it didn't happen, et cetera. And so when I first ventured into the public school sector, I was like, almost just why not? Like, if you have the staff, why not take the data? What could go wrong?
Or what's the downside? But again, is anyone looking at every single piece of data you've ever collected? And when you have so many that you're wondering how you're going to get through it? I think that is a downside. And then also we have found it like when I first brought it up to the classrooms, they were kind of like, Oh, okay.
Like, two days a week, that's all. And it actually was really freeing because then you have a three day week and you don't have to worry about it one of the days, or if it's Halloween and it's like, instead of scrambling to get a few points after the parade, just, it's a non data day. And I also think they enjoy more just having the face to face time with the students, which sounds silly, but especially if you're doing trial data on like five to ten IEP goals, every few seconds you're looking down at the data book and erasing something or marking something, and it just gives you more of like the genuine interaction time with the learner.
Audra Jensen: We also had a weird situation a couple years ago when we had a classroom the teacher skill set was still developing and they were understaffed like everybody is. And then there was admin who had come in from some, some clinical background and they were like, they need to be an ABA classroom. And they wanted us to go in and set up DT and we're like, you know, this, that's a great idea, but that's not going to be functionally available for that teacher and those students.
And so we said, we frankly said, no, we can't do that for that particular situation. Now, if the teacher skill set improves or the staffing improves then of course, we can do that, but we're not going to set them up with all spend all the time. Oh, my gosh, it takes so much time to set these programs up. And have them not be able to be delivered to fidelity.
Caitlin Beltran: And exactly. And that's, I think what I would have said to, like, I can give you a world where as of next week, we're taking data on everything all the time. Is the data going to be functional? Maybe, maybe, probably not. And that's just a reflection of me when I first started teaching.
And if somebody asked me to take data on this, this and that, I remember days of like, well, I don't want to ask another question, so I'll just take the data, even though I, is this right? Is it wrong? It's your first week in a new classroom. There's not enough people circulating to ask for their help or things like that.
So yes, physically, can you get data on everything every day? Sure. But if you're even questioning whether or not it's, you know, there's fidelity and things like that, then it's probably not worthwhile.
Audra Jensen: And you don't want people to be spending time doing that stuff if, you know, you're not going to be able to do anything with it. So you could have a perfect classroom setting and then the people who are supposed to be, you know, analyzing the data or plugging in the data don't have time to do that. Then the data is just lost and it's useless anyway.
Caitlin Beltran: So it's just sitting there. And that was another like, I feel like light bulb or premonition moment for me when I was teaching and I remember the student I remember the skill we were tracking and it wasn't even that cumbersome. It wasn't like Oh, this is so much in the way. I just remember looking at these stacks every Friday. I'd put them in a folder and like there's another one, there's another one.
I'm not looking at them and you're not looking at them and everyone's like well It could be good in the future to look back on. I'm like As a teacher, for me to ask my paras to be doing it every day when just those few seconds could have freed them up for something else, I'm like, I just don't see how this is helping.
Audra Jensen: And it's funny, Caitlin, is this what makes us misfit behaviorists? Because if you go into the clinical field and stuff, they're like data every day on every skill set. I remember it was like on every single trial data. And I'm like, you know, that's just not functionally appropriate for a classroom setting.
Caitlin Beltran: Frankly, it's not appropriate for a clinical setting either. And I think it all goes back to like what you said, it depends on the setting. But I do think I'm seeing a shift. I think there's others out there that are like, yes, the whole data or it didn't happen, etc. Like, we love that. Like, no, we do.
Audra Jensen: Definitely.
Caitlin Beltran: Is it meaningful? Is it functional? Yes. And is it done in a way? Can you do something with it? right. So I feel like for me this past few years and I kind of like love changing things every year and seeing what works and didn't and I do feel like I've gotten a lot of positive feedback from staff on that one.
Which is funny because sometimes in other classrooms I'll say it does depend on the setting I'm like you know this I know it's just one data point but you could just do it twice a week. By progress reporting time, I'll still have X amount of data points to look through. Or by the end of the week, I'll still like, what is it?
Three versus five, that big of a deal. And I'll have some paras this day that are like, I'm just going to do it every day. Like I'm going to do it every day. And I'm like, and that's fine too. That's fine. I totally get that. I totally get that, you know, routine of it. But for me, that's been one of my kind of hacks, this past few years.
And it's been, like I said, just freeing, I think on everybody and hasn't changed our results that much. I haven't seen any lack of progress or not being able to analyze skills or interventions easily. Now that we do with skill data. I think with behavior data, unless you're taking it in a certain way, I mean, you can't just as easily say, Oh, just don't track it on Tuesday.
Audra Jensen: At the same time on behavior data, you don't expect your paras, your teachers to be taking ABC long extended notes about what was going on for every single behavior. I mean, once we generally take our ABC kind of anecdotal data early on, then we create a very simple system for tracking that behavior.
Once we've operationally defined it, we know exactly what we're looking for. Very easy to track that data and that can be done every day. And then it kind of checking back in later and getting some more notes about it. But all that, you know, I've seen some where they have their, the ABC notes are like, you know, pages and pages of days and days. I'm like, you don't need to be doing that.
Caitlin Beltran: No, I'm glad you said that. Cause I feel the same exact way. I've always, it's been my practice. We'll collect ABC data at the onset, you know, putting it in the mix to look at functions as part of an FBA, whatever it may be. And then after that, we're either moving to like frequency, interval, something that's concrete with frequency.
So actually I guess that's shifting us from like the second hack of being more behavior data lens. Yes, if it's frequency, we're taking it all day every day. And then if it's too cumbersome, we're moving to something else like an interval or something like that. But I do have some where maybe it's It's like, I'm thinking of like on task or something where it's pretty frequent.
And if, if it's pretty consistent throughout the day, or I don't know what I'm trying to say, consistently high, we're taking data, but we're only taking a sample. Maybe we're taking it in the first half of the day or taking it in the first period of the day. And I know this learner and I know their history and I know that it's rare that they're going to have no behaviors in the morning.
I guess I'm trying to say consistently across the day. You know, if you have a learner who has a tantrum or behavior over very specific things, you can't just say, Oh, well, I won't take data during lunch. Knowing if lunch is a big trigger, that's not going to be accurate, but there's other behaviors, maybe more with like an automatic function. I'm thinking of that you could really take sample data and get pretty accurate results from that.
Audra Jensen: It also makes me think about when I have them taking data, on a student in a, in an inclusion classroom or, you know, a regular classroom, then they have other students of their age typically developing, I'll teach my staff to not only take data, especially in that introductory period where you're kind of figuring out the behavior, take it not only on them, but also take it on the kid to their left and the kid to their right, because then you're really comparing, because especially like you go into a kindergarten classroom, they're all rolling over the floors. You know, poking each other and picking their nose.
You know, that's very typical for a five year old. And so we don't want to go in and kind of telescope on this one student. So let's compare their behavior during the setting to other typically developing kids in that age group. So that's another.
Caitlin Beltran: Yeah, I think that's such a great point. It's kind of off topic, but what else is new with us?
Sometimes I, I do like on task and I'll put a peer comparison and sometimes once in a while someone will say, oh no, like how dare you compare them to a peer or something like that? And I'm like, no, no, no, this is for their benefit because I'm trying to show the point that you're making that in a Kinder or First grade classroom, maybe this behavior is not eliminated, but it's reduced to a level that's developmentally appropriate and you won't know that unless you're comparing to a sample of peers. I think that makes so much sense.
Audra Jensen: Yeah, I had one student. I may have told you a story before, but I had a student who was in a classroom and we had a para that would go with that student to the classroom. And the teacher of the classroom was worried about their behavior during standing in line going to recess or something. And so I went in to observe them.
And, you know, And I saw that the student was out of line and poking at everybody else, and I stood back and I said, yeah, but so is them, and them, and them. And I was like, that's typical of that classroom. So we get so hyper focused on the students that it's good to step back and say, what is, like you said, developmentally appropriate? Five year olds are, you know, it's herding cats. They're all like that.
Caitlin Beltran: Right. There's so many different things. So yeah, I mean, I guess this was more of a brief tidbit, but just focusing on the quality of our data and that more is not always better, whether it's skill or behavior. And I will link in the show notes. I have like a free. It's like a two page little packet of, skill beha skill data and behavior data. And we use, like, some version of that in almost every classroom because it's just really user friendly and streamlined. And then if I have to recreate it, I will, but it gives us a starting off point, which I think is hugely helpful.
Audra Jensen: Awesome. All right, well, I guess we'll see you next time, So you say? Subscribe. Like.
Caitlin Beltran: Like. No like. Is there a like?
There's probably a like. Comment.Subscribe if you want to hear more. There you go. See ya. See ya.
Thanks for listening to the Misfit Behaviorist. And be sure to tune in next week for more tips and tricks. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss an episode.
