PS498 Unit 2 Measurement and Design Paper Example

Three Counts a Day and Two Staggered Starts: A PS498 Unit 2 Measurement and Design Paper

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

PS498: Bachelor's Capstone in Applied Behavior Analysis

Unit 2 Measurement and Design Paper

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The writer, the clinic, the families and every figure are composite and illustrative; the articles and book cited are real.

The Project

Two children at my Omaha autism clinic are the focus of my supervised capstone on toilet training. Amara is five and speaks in short sentences; Leo is four and uses about ten signs. Both wear diapers all day. Our clinic's board certified behavior analyst approved the project, will oversee every phase, and will make all procedural decisions; I will collect and analyze the data and carry out sessions under her direction.

Before any training begins, two questions need answers. What exactly will be measured? And how will we know whether changes are caused by the training rather than by maturation, a new school year or chance?

Defining the Behaviors

LeBlanc et al. (2005) measured accidents and successful voids in their outpatient toilet training program for children with autism, and those measures fit our project. I wrote three definitions with my supervisor.

An accident is any urination or bowel movement outside the toilet, identified by a wet or soiled diaper, underwear or clothing at a check or when noticed. Each separate wet or soiled episode counts once.

A continent void is urination or a bowel movement into the toilet while the child is seated or standing at it, confirmed by sight or sound.

A self-initiation is any independent signal of the need to use the bathroom before voiding, including saying "potty" or "bathroom," signing "toilet," walking to the bathroom door or pulling an adult toward it, occurring without a prompt in the previous two minutes.

Each definition includes examples and non-examples. For instance, a child walking into the bathroom because the group is washing hands is not a self-initiation.

A pulled sleeve toward the bathroom counts; a walk to wash hands with the group does not.

Measurement Procedures

During clinic hours, from 8:30 to 2:30, the technician working with each child checks for accidents every thirty minutes in baseline and records all three behaviors on a tablet with time stamps. Results are summarized as counts per clinic day. At home, parents record accidents and toilet voids on a simple paper chart during the evening, which will serve as generalization data rather than primary data.

Agreement

A second trained observer, another technician, will independently record all three behaviors on at least one day in four for each child, across baseline and intervention. Agreement will be calculated per thirty-minute interval for accidents and continent voids, and per occurrence for self-initiations. If agreement falls below 85 percent for any behavior, we will review definitions and retrain before continuing.

Choosing a Design

Cooper et al. (2020) describe the multiple baseline design across participants as one in which baseline begins at the same time for several participants and the intervention is introduced to them one at a time. If each participant's behavior changes only when the intervention begins for that participant, the change can be attributed to the intervention rather than to outside events. A reversal design, which would remove the intervention after success, is not appropriate for toilet training: returning a child to diapers after success would be unethical and might not reverse a learned skill anyway.

The plan is a multiple baseline across Amara and Leo. Baseline begins for both on the same Monday. Amara's training starts once her baseline has held steady for five or more days, and Leo's starts no sooner than five days after that, once Amara's data show a clear change.

Weighing the Design Against Standards

Horner et al. (2005) proposed quality indicators for single-subject research used to identify evidence-based practices. Among them were operational definitions, repeated measurement, interobserver agreement, a baseline that establishes a pattern, and at least three demonstrations of an experimental effect at three different points in time.

Our design meets most of these but not the last. Two participants allow only two demonstrations. I discussed this with my supervisor, who suggested two responses. First, we will describe the project as a clinical evaluation rather than a study meant to establish evidence. Second, we will add home generalization data as a further, weaker check. A third child could strengthen the design, but no other child at the clinic currently needs toilet training, and adding one for the sake of the design would put research ahead of service.

Threats the Design Must Handle

Several threats could make a change look like a training effect when it is not. Maturation is the most obvious, since children often begin using the toilet on their own between four and six. The staggered start addresses it: if Leo's accidents fall while he is still in baseline, maturation or something else at the clinic is a likely cause, and we will say so. History is a second threat. Amara starts a half-day preschool program at a community center in the afternoons during the project, and new routines there, including watching other children use the toilet, could change her behavior at the clinic; her preschool teacher has agreed to tell us about any toileting practice there. A third threat is measurement itself. Checking every thirty minutes may prompt a child to void in the toilet even before training, so baseline includes the same checks that will continue during training.

Social Validity Measures

The project will also measure whether the goals, procedures and results matter to families. At the start and end, parents will rate how important each goal is, how acceptable the procedures are and how satisfied they are with the results on a short scale, and Amara's preschool teacher and Leo's speech therapist will rate how the change affects daily routines.

Graphing and Decisions

Data will be graphed daily as three panels per child, with a dashed line marking the phase change. My supervisor and I will review graphs twice a week. Decision rules written in advance state that if accidents do not fall by at least half within ten training days, she will review the protocol before continuing.

Conclusion

Three defined behaviors, interval-based agreement checks and a multiple baseline across participants give the capstone measures two observers can share and a design that can separate training from time. Cooper and colleagues' account of the design supports it, LeBlanc and colleagues' measures guide the definitions, and Horner and colleagues' standards show its limits, which the project will state openly.

References

Cooper, J. O., Heron, T. E., & Heward, W. L. (2020). Applied behavior analysis (3rd ed.). Pearson.

Horner, R. H., Carr, E. G., Halle, J., McGee, G., Odom, S., & Wolery, M. (2005). The use of single-subject research to identify evidence-based practice in special education. Exceptional Children, 71(2), 165-179. https://doi.org/10.1177/001440290507100203

LeBlanc, L. A., Carr, J. E., Crossett, S. E., Bennett, C. M., & Detweiler, D. D. (2005). Intensive outpatient behavioral treatment of primary urinary incontinence of children with autism. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 20(2), 98-105. https://doi.org/10.1177/10883576050200020601