Collecting Appropriate Baseline Data
Getting notification of a new student starting is always quite stressful for me. I LOVE having new students join our class and routine, but there is also a TON of information and paperwork that gets thrown at us when we get new students. First, I am invited to an...
(FUN)ctional Routines
Practicing functional routines is an essential life skill. In doing so, our learners will work on becoming independent in the classroom, their homes, and their communities. Functional routines can be fun and motivating, even if they are challenging and stressful right...
Proactive Strategies for Behavior- Part 1
Prepare your learners and their caregivers Many of our learners may be struggling at this time during remote learning, a hybrid model, or even an in person model. Any model that a school district may be following includes more and more changes. I am beginning to see...
Scheduling Preschoolers and Keeping IEP Data During Remote Learning
The start of the school year has been off to a wonderful and crazy ride! Zoom meetings have been taking over my whole day as we get ready to teach our students in a remote setting. As we start teaching, it is important that I stay as focused as possible, especially...
How to Align STAR and PEAK ABA Programs
My district has recently announced that we will be full remote learning until at least October 1st, 2020. At that time, the district will re-evaluate in hopes of making our way towards a hybrid model. This is a hard time for many of us, our students, and all families!...
Using Boom Cards
You may have been hearing a lot about Boom Cards lately. They are interactive task cards you can use from any device or browser and they track data. They are PERFECT for distance learning but I also think this will be so useful when you are back in the classroom....
Writing the IEP Goal Mastery Criteria
There are certain topics that I just can't help but jump on a soapbox about. Once you get me talking, it's hard for me to stop. IEP goal mastery criteria is one of those topics. This isn't because I absolutely love writing IEP goals. This is because I see the mastery...
Paraprofessional Training Guide – Part 2
You guys know I LOVE talking about staff training. I can't stop talking about staff training on my podcast, staff training has its own special tab in my Professional Development Membership, and I sneak it into literally every presentation I do. It's because it's THAT...
How Using Behavior Rubrics Can Streamline Your Data Collection
Whenever I talk about data collection, the questions that I get the most often revolve around behavior data. Typically these questions are some variation of "How can I collect behavior data in a way that is useful, doesn't take a lot of time, and can actually help me...
Creating Efficient Goal Programs
Creating a Goal Program Let’s be honest here, creating goal programs for a caseload of students can be very daunting and hard to tackle. The beauty in it though, is that once you have the structure finished, you can easily collect data, update materials and chart...
Focus on Five: Writing IEP Goals Using the ABLLS-R
It’s week three of school and I already have two IEP meetings next week! If you are in the same boat as me, keep reading (if your students’ IEPs are not until later, please enjoy IEP Goals Can Wait). When I was shown how easy it was to create goals using the ABLLS-R,...
How to Take Data on Play Skills
You read that right. Data and play in the same sentence. Seems kind of ridiculous right?! Why should you be taking data on play? As we have been talking about all month, play and leisure can be used not only to teach but to generalize and maintain so many...
How to get started with ABA & DTT
Today I want to break down how to get started with ABA and DTT in the classroom. It's easier than you think, research based, and super effective. Adding it to your classroom routine isn't nearly as scary as it sounds. With a few simple steps you can have...
How to Write Great IEP Goals
Great teaching, useful data, and student progress start with the IEP goals. But when we sit down to write an IEP we often forget that. The special ed world is drowning in paperwork and when you open up what feels like IEP 300 of the year you just want to...
Data Collection Tips for Related Service Providers
One of the most challenging aspects of my job as a related service provider is the fact that I am all over the place! I am currently assigned to students in 3 buildings - and I have roughly 1 day at each place. There is so much to do and not nearly...
Focus on Five: Teaching Paraprofessionals About Data Collection
As teachers, we know the importance of data-it drives instruction and behavior interventions. We have had classes about data collection and attend PDs about this topic, but it can be difficult to collect all the data you want with 13 students in your classroom. While...
Taking Control of Your Data
Data, data everywhere! I LOVE data. I love valid, authentic and reliable data. Nothing gives me a better understanding of my students and their needs. But let me be real with you, the amount of data a special education teacher has to deal with can be...
Using Click Counters to Collect Data
I am not sure exactly when I started using click counters to collect data. Sometime during my grad school years most likely. Those ABA people have all the good tricks. Although I don't remember specifically when I started, I do know that I was instantly hooked. It...
Using the Assessment of Basic Language and Learner Skills to Guide Your Instruction
Last time I talked about the new ABLLS (Assessment of Basic Language and Learner Skills) task cards. This week I wanted to take a closer look into the data you have collected and how to use it to guide your instruction. I feel like it’s safe to assume...
Focus on Five: Data Sheets I’m Using In My Classroom Right Now with Freebies
February is all about data at The Autism Helper and as teachers, we know how essential data collection is for a successful classroom (check out our collective data blog post for inspiration). For this post, I wanted to share five data sheets I am currently using in my...