An ABA concurrent operants reinforcer assessment data sheet should make the choice arrangement visible, not just tally which option received more responses. The two response paths, their effort, the consequences they produce, the schedules in effect, valid observation time, delivery errors, switching, and the person's experience all shape what response allocation can mean.

The copyable worksheet below is for a qualified, individualized assessment in which two response-consequence paths are available at the same time. It supports a relative comparison inside that arrangement. It does not automatically show that either consequence would strengthen responding when offered alone, and it does not turn the less-selected consequence into a nonreinforcer.

Clinicians & ABA Professionals / Assessment and Treatment Planning.

Participation boundary: The responsible team decides whether a concurrent arrangement fits the client, question, setting, competence, and risk. Keep the person's usual communication, AAC, mobility and positioning supports, sensory accommodations, breaks, help, ordinary necessities, prescribed care, and reliable stop signals available. This worksheet never authorizes forced work, deprivation, removal of essential access, blocked exit, ignored dissent, or continued testing after a stop rule is met.

Start with the relative question

A concurrent-operants assessment places two or more response options in simultaneous competition. Each defined response contacts its programmed consequence according to its own schedule. The central observation is how behavior is allocated across the available paths, provided those paths are genuinely accessible and the important procedural differences are known.

Roscoe, Iwata, and Kahng compared concurrent and single-schedule arrangements in a small study. Their findings illustrate the distinction this worksheet protects: a concurrent arrangement was sensitive to relative choice, while a lower-preference stimulus that attracted little responding beside a richer option could still support responding when evaluated alone. A review of context in reinforcer-efficacy evaluation makes the same practical point. Available alternatives can change the answer.

Write the question so the conclusion cannot quietly expand. “When both accessible switch responses are available under the stated schedules, how does response allocation differ between the music-linked and drawing-linked paths?” is bounded. “Which activity is a reinforcer?” is not bounded enough for this design.

Copy these question fields into the working record:

  • Purpose: client priority, practical decision, and excluded decisions.
  • Paths: simultaneous responses and consequence versions.
  • Boundary: setting, partner, task, schedule, and time.
  • Ownership: qualified owner, collaborators, dates, and review trigger.

Draw both paths before recording outcomes

The simplest useful map follows each option from opportunity to obtained consequence. Two buttons that look identical may differ in reach, activation force, visual salience, motor history, prompt history, or reliability. Two consequences with the same label may differ in delay, amount, quality, duration, interruption, social interaction, or ease of consuming them.

Path elementOption AOption BMatched, intentionally different, or unresolved?Response topography and device/material.Starting position, reach, force, and motor steps.Visual, auditory, tactile, language, and cognitive demands.Familiarity, training, and recent practice.Prompt and correction history.Programmed schedule.Delay from response to consequence.Amount, duration, quality, and termination.Consequence availability outside the assessment.Equipment and partner delivery path.

The study comparing preference under fixed- and progressive-ratio schedules shows why schedule requirements belong in the record. Relative responding observed under dense requirements may not persist when effort changes. This does not mean every assessment needs progressive ratios. It means an unlabeled schedule is a missing part of the result.

If asymmetry is the planned independent variable, name it. If it is an accidental difference, repair it prospectively and start a new version rather than explaining it away after seeing allocation.

Preserve communication and an authentic opt-out

Ask how the person understands the arrangement, signals help, declines a consequence, pauses, or ends participation. Do not assume that silence, gaze, movement, stillness, smiling, or turning away has one universal meaning. Record the person's established communication and the partners needed to honor it.

The ASHA AAC Practice Portal states that people who use AAC should always have access to their communication tools or devices. ASHA's Communication Access framework emphasizes asking about communication preferences, communicating directly, confirming understanding, allowing processing time, and supporting more than one communication method. These access principles do not prescribe the response topography for a behavior-analytic assessment. They prevent the worksheet from confusing communication barriers with allocation.

Record participation as four separate entries:

  • Authority: accessible explanation, consent, and assent process when applicable.
  • Signals: reliable yes, no, help, break, change, and stop responses.
  • Access: communication, sensory, motor, positioning, and processing supports.
  • Safeguards: ordinary access, health routes, stop rules, and response to withdrawal.

Breaux and Smith discuss assent and assent withdrawal in an evolving practice literature. Their paper is not a law or signal dictionary. The applicable consent, assent, dissent, and withdrawal requirements still come from governing rules, individualized communication, and qualified judgment.

Define the observation clock and response events

Continuous availability does not remove the need for denominators. Decide when valid time begins, when the clock pauses, what counts as a response on each path, how rapid repeats are handled, what counts as a changeover, and which equipment or delivery failures invalidate time or responses. Retain invalid units and reasons rather than deleting them.

Measurement elementProspective definitionUnit and denominatorInvalid, pause, or stop rulePlanned observation time.seconds or minutesValid observation time.planned time minus invalid timeOption A response.count and responses per valid minuteOption B response.count and responses per valid minuteSimultaneous or ambiguous activation.separate countChangeover.event countInactivity or no emitted response.duration or prespecified observation unitProgrammed consequence delivery.delivered / eligible responsesUnscheduled or independent consequence contact.separate event or durationHelp, decline, break, or withdrawal.event plus narrative

Response allocation among emitted responses uses A responses / (A + B responses) and B responses / (A + B responses). Response rates use each option's valid responses divided by valid observation minutes. These are different views. Allocation can look strongly separated while overall responding is sparse; rate can be high on both paths while allocation still favors one.

Do not add changeovers to either option's response count unless the operational definition explicitly makes a changeover the target response. Do not count a programmed delivery as obtained merely because software logged it; verify that the consequence was available in the described form.

Use a session ledger that can expose drift

SessionVersion and positionPlanned secondsInvalid seconds and reasonValid secondsA responsesB responsesChangeoversA delivered / eligibleB delivered / eligibleHelp, decline, burden, or direct feedback

Position rotation is not a ritual. It is evidence about whether device location, therapist posture, lighting, cords, noise, furniture, or another cue travels with an option. Record the actual position and sequence. If a consequence is temporarily unavailable, the arrangement is no longer the planned simultaneous comparison.

Context and confound reviewWhat was plannedWhat occurredConsequence for validity or interpretationPosition, sequence, effort, and accessibility.Instructions, prompts, schedule, delay, amount, duration, and quality.Recent access, partner interaction, and competing activities.Health, sensory load, equipment, and delivery integrity.

Fictional community-media example

Imani is a fictional teenager helping a qualified clinician compare two leisure consequences during a brief, mastered switch-press response. Option A produces a short segment from a client-chosen music playlist. Option B produces brief access to a client-chosen digital drawing activity. Both remain optional; Imani can do neither, request another activity, ask for help, or stop. Communication, water, rest, and ordinary supports remain freely available. The example tests the worksheet's arithmetic, not an actual clinical decision.

Eight five-minute sessions create 8 x 5 x 60 = 2,400 planned seconds. A connector failure made both delivery paths unreliable for a prospectively defined 60-second interval. That interval remains in the ledger as invalid. Valid time is 2,400 - 60 = 2,340 seconds, or 2,340 / 60 = 39 minutes.

Summary measureOption AOption BCombined or interpretationValid responses683098Allocation among emitted responses68 / 98 = 69.4%30 / 98 = 30.6%Relative allocation; no inactivity denominatorResponses per valid minute68 / 39 = 1.7430 / 39 = 0.77Combined 98 / 39 = 2.51 per minuteProgrammed deliveries obtained64 / 68 = 94.1%29 / 30 = 96.7%93 / 98 = 94.9% overallChangeovers22 events, kept outside response allocation

The response allocation favors A in this version, but delivery was imperfect for both paths. The record should show which five eligible responses did not produce their programmed consequence, the timing of those failures, and whether they clustered by session or position. A percentage alone cannot repair a broken contingency.

The result supports wording such as: “Within eight brief sessions using these response devices, consequence versions, positions, and schedules, 69.4% of 98 valid emitted responses occurred on path A.” It does not support: “B is not a reinforcer,” “A will work for every goal,” or “Imani prefers A in all settings.”

The relative-versus-absolute study is especially important here. A richer simultaneous option can mask responding that another consequence might support when tested by itself. If the clinical question is absolute effect rather than relative allocation, a qualified reviewer may consider a credible single-operant comparison instead of stretching this worksheet beyond its design.

Check delivery and procedural integrity separately

ObservationCorrect versionsSimultaneous availabilityPosition correctEffort matchedInstructions/prompts correctSchedule correctDelay correctAmount/duration correctIndependent access recordedStop/help honoredResponse coding correctDelivery coding correctCorrectOpportunities

For the fictional sample, reviewers scored 15 observations across 12 components. That creates 15 x 12 = 180 component opportunities. They recorded 171 correct and nine mismatches, with 171 + 9 = 180. Descriptive fidelity is 171 / 180 x 100 = 95.0%.

Aggregate fidelity cannot make every error harmless. A single ignored stop signal, missing communication device, inaccessible response path, or undelivered consequence can require immediate review. List mismatches by component and session. Decide prospectively whether each affected unit remains valid, is excluded with a reason, or requires a new version.

The BACB Ethics Code addresses competence, client involvement, consent and assent when applicable, assessment, risk, documentation, data, and evaluation for covered people. The BCBA Test Content Outline, Sixth Edition includes reinforcement, experimental design, measurement, procedural integrity, visual analysis, and data-based decisions as examination content. Neither document endorses this worksheet, supplies a case protocol, or substitutes for law, licensure, supervision, payer terms, and professional judgment.

Interpret the display without turning it into a verdict

Review lensEvidence from this versionCompeting explanation or limitationBounded next action and ownerRelative response allocation.Overall and option-specific response rate.Inactivity or no-response evidence.Changeovers and position balance.Programmed versus obtained consequences.Schedule, effort, delay, amount, duration, and quality.Direct client feedback and current preference.Burden, distress, unwanted effects, help, and withdrawal.Replication, trend, variability, and context.Remaining absolute-effect or generalization question.

Visual review belongs beside the summary. Inspect response counts or rates session by session, not only as a pooled total. Look for position tracking, early exploration, later stabilization, drift, carryover, clustered delivery failures, and changes after breaks or access. A pooled 69.4% can conceal a result that reversed halfway through.

The choice-making study using single and concurrent arrangements illustrates how fixed-ratio, progressive-ratio, and concurrent procedures can answer different questions. Its particular tasks, edible consequences, response requirements, and stopping rules are not defaults for this form. One enduring boundary is useful: participation can stop, and more effort is not automatically better evidence.

The current CASP and APBA assessment-guideline access page describes assessment as individualized and multimodal, with attention to benefit, potential harm, unique circumstances, competence, and current evidence. It also says the resources do not replace independent professional judgment. That limitation applies equally to this worksheet.

Write a conclusion another reviewer can reproduce

Conclusion fieldEntryQuestion, version, valid time, invalid time, and reasons.Raw responses, rates, allocation, and delivery denominators.Position, sequence, changeovers, trend, replication, and fidelity.Client feedback, access, burden, help, dissent, and withdrawal.Supported conclusion, explicit limits, next action, owner, and review trigger.

Preserve the raw ledger and prior version when response devices, consequence versions, access, schedule, position rules, partner, setting, health, or the client's priorities change. A changed arrangement may deserve a new question. It is not evidence that an earlier response was wrong.

The ABA concurrent operants reinforcer assessment data sheet is complete only when a reviewer can reconstruct both response-consequence paths and see why every included or excluded unit belongs. A clean total is not enough. The useful record preserves the arrangement, the person’s access and experience, the raw denominators, the delivery evidence, and the limits of the question actually tested.

Related resources

Sources

The cited studies use small samples and tightly specified arrangements. They help define variables and interpretation limits. They do not establish a universal response, candidate, schedule, session length, cutoff, hierarchy, reinforcer, treatment, or predicted outcome.