Build a Phase and Response History for Relapse

To build a phase and response history for relapse assessment, version Ben's baseline, treatment, maintenance, context change, reinforcement change, implementation lapse, recurrence, repair, and follow-up. Define target, alternative, communication, help, withdrawal, invalid, and safety responses. Preserve exact dates, exposures, partners, supports, health, access, integrity, and missingness. A recurrence becomes interpretable only in relation to the history the record can actually support.

Create one dated row per phase

Name the phase, start and end, reason for change, context, written treatment version, response definitions, planned exposure, actual exposure, and responsible owner.

Lock response classes across the timeline

Keep the prior target, alternative skill, help, withdrawal, partner response, safety response, invalidity, and missingness separate. Document any definition change as a new version.

Measure exposure and integrity

A phase with three opportunities differs from one with thirty. Record treatment opportunities, completed sessions, schedule delivery, prompts, partner response, missed exposure, and interruptions.

Keep repairs visible

A repaired label, restored device, retrained partner, or returned schedule creates a new phase. Preserve the flawed version so the source of change remains auditable.

Use this sequence to build a phase and response history

Version Ben's phases, lock response classes, count exposure, audit integrity and access, retain invalid events, show repairs, and limit process labels to the supported sequence.

Build Ben's phase-and-response history

Create one versioned phase-and-response history for the neighborhood grocery stocking routine. Include Ben's priority, response classes, phases, contexts, treatment versions, reinforcement, exposure, integrity, access, health, recurrence timing, safety action, direct experience, invalidity, missingness, withdrawal, candidate process, alternative explanations, design limits, decision, qualified owner, correction, and reassessment trigger. Store only decision-relevant information with role-limited access.

Validate Ben's recurrence evidence

Reproduce Ben's 12 + 16 + 14 + 10 + 8 = 60 planned opportunities and the recorded phase fractions of 7/12, 1/16, 1/14, 5/10, and 1/8. Treat those fractions as planned-opportunity summaries because four events are invalid. Assign every invalid event to its source phase before calculating a valid-opportunity rate. Without that phase allocation, valid denominators and percentages cannot be reproduced. Verify treatment versions, contexts, labels, partners, supports, reinforcement, health, access, integrity, and Ben's report.

Connect Ben's evidence to a decision

Ben's phase history should support a provenance decision before a process decision. If dates, response definitions, exposure, or treatment versions cannot be reconciled, the analyst reports an observed return with incomplete history. That transparent result can still justify access repair, partner training, or a new prospective baseline.

Work through Ben's example

Ben's record has five phases and 60 planned stocking opportunities. Baseline contains 12, initial treatment 16, maintenance 14, context change 10, and repair eight. Four opportunities are invalid because labels are missing. The recorded planned-opportunity fractions are 7/12 baseline, 1/16 treatment, 1/14 maintenance, 5/10 context change, and 1/8 repair. They are audit summaries rather than valid-opportunity performance rates. The record must locate the four invalid events within phases, subtract them only from the affected valid denominators, and retain all 60 in the exposure ledger. Preserve every planned and valid unit, response code, phase and context version, treatment component, reinforcement event, exposure, integrity result, access and health state, safety response, withdrawal, direct report, system failure, repair, correction, and unresolved item. This fictional example demonstrates one assessment control. It offers no diagnosis, person trait, universal relapse estimate, treatment effect, legal conclusion, coverage decision, payment promise, or outcome guarantee for Ben.

Address Ben's main interpretation risk

A graph that labels only pre and post hides maintenance, context change, and repair. Moving invalid label failures into Ben's target response inflates recurrence. Combining help with the target response also erases a useful communication route. Review response and phase definitions, treatment history, reinforcement, exposure, context, integrity, access, health, partner behavior, direct experience, alternative explanations, authority, and design strength separately. A convincing graph cannot repair an unsafe, inaccessible, unwanted, or historically unsupported recurrence assessment.

Keep treatment scope and authority clear for Ben

For Ben's phase-and-response history, the CASP public summary supplies high-level ABA behavioral-health-treatment scope for autistic people, with licensed detail outside this page. The current BACB Ethics Code addresses competence, client involvement, consent and assent when applicable, medical needs, risk, data, documentation, evaluation, discontinuation, and transition for covered people. The BACB outline supplies examination content. These sources create no individualized relapse protocol or practice authority for Ben.

Distinguish early increase from recurrence for Ben

The historical Lerman and Iwata analysis reviewed extinction data and found early increases under a defined burst criterion in a minority of reviewed data sets. An extinction burst describes a time-linked early increase after extinction begins, whereas Ben's later recurrence question requires its own phase history. The study offers no universal prevalence estimate for current care, no safety authorization, and no prediction for the neighborhood grocery stocking routine.

Use alternative-reinforcement and communication literature within scope for Ben

Athens and Vollmer evaluated differential reinforcement without extinction with seven children and varied dimensions such as immediacy, duration, and quality. The Tiger, Hanley, and Bruzek review discusses FCT assessment, response selection, partner response, schedule thinning, and related risks. These sources support careful history and delivery measurement for Ben; they supply no universal schedule, delay, consequence, or relapse outcome.

Use renewal evidence cautiously for Ben

The Podlesnik renewal review synthesizes basic and translational work on recurrence with context change while extinction or treatment contingencies remain. Much of that evidence comes from controlled laboratory arrangements. Understanding and Reacting to Relapse discusses practice-facing context and recurrence considerations. For Ben, define people, places, cues, treatment continuity, access, and integrity before applying renewal language.

Preserve broad relapse limits and communication access for Ben

Relapse and Its Mitigation distinguishes several recurrence histories and discusses mitigation concepts. It organizes hypotheses rather than proving which process occurred for Ben. ASHA's AAC portal says AAC users should always have access to communication tools or devices. Follow governing sources and preserve Ben's communication, health care, food, water, bathroom use, mobility, rest, relationships, safety, and emergency help throughout review.

Choose Ben's next bounded action

Ben corrects the date of the aisle move and asks the store to preserve the same large-print labels across the maintenance and follow-up phases. Record the qualified owner, source evidence, effective date, current phase and treatment version, ordinary supports, access and health state, implementation check, accessible explanation, disagreement route, and reassessment trigger. Preserve the earlier record when responses, people, settings, systems, schedules, health, or priorities change. A repaired arrangement creates a dated phase rather than an error in Ben's prior performance.

Close Ben's relapse review

Review the phase-and-response history with Ben, the qualified behavior analyst, relevant partners, access owners, and specialists named in the manifest. Confirm that observed recurrence remains separate from resurgence, renewal, an extinction burst, treatment drift, access failure, health change, and treatment effect; every denominator is reproducible; AAC and basic access remain protected; urgent needs received action; and conclusions stay bounded to the supported history. Keep this page draft and noindex until every required review is complete.

How to Build a Phase and Response History for Relapse Assessment