Module 5 – Lesson 6

Scatterplots are a type of data collection that involve dividing a day into intervals and then recording when behaviours of interest occur. They are often used when assessing behaviors that challenge because they provide information about  when and during what activities the behavior occurs or does not occur. This can be helpful in identifying antecedents for a behaviour that challenges.

Let?s look at some examples.

Amanda is a teacher who wants to identify pattern’s in her student’s challenging behaviour.  She makes a scatterplot graph for the next week dividing each school day into half hour intervals. When the student’s challenging behaviour occurs, she places an X in the corresponding box on the scatterplot graph. From this, she notes that the challenging behaviour happens most often during Maths lessons or just before lunch.             

Tim works in a group home. One of the people he supports engages in self-injury. He uses a grid-like graph to record and analyse the occurrence of challenging behaviour.  The vertical grid segments are divided into 15 minute periods across the day.  Horizontal segments represent successive days. A blank cell represents the non-occurrence of a behaviour and a filled cell represents an interval during which the target behaviour occurred. They note that self-injury is most likely to occur at times of day when there are staff changes.

Amy’s supervisor asked her to record her client’s episodes of challenging behaviour using a scatterplot. She makes a grid-like graph where horizontal segments represent successive days and the vertical segments represent hour long intervals across the day. She fill in cells when the behaviour occurs and leaves them  blank when the behaviour does not occur.  Amy and he supervisor note that behaviors that challenge typically happen half an hour after she receives her client receives her medication.

From the above examples, you can see how scatterplot data can provide us with information that is useful when assessing challenging behaviours. They provide us with information not just about a behaviour occurring but also allows us to identify temporal patterns.

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