Document ABA Prompts, Help, and Ordinary Supports

To document ABA prompts independence help and ordinary supports, define the natural cue, response, accessible communication forms, ordinary supports, requested help, and each added prompt before scoring. Record prompt type, level, timing, source, fading or escalation rule, correction, and whether the event was teaching or an independent probe. Useful self-selected supports and help do not automatically make a response unsuccessful or dependent.

Define Willow's support-and-prompt context record

Willow distinguishes environmental access from instructional assistance. Glasses, mobility equipment, visual schedules, AAC, sensory supports, and chosen reminders may be ordinary parts of successful participation rather than prompts to remove. The record names the client-priority question, source, author, period, operational unit, ordinary supports, accessible communication, clinical purpose, qualified decision owner, open uncertainty, and evidence needed before the claim can be used.

Build Willow's page-specific evidence fields

Willow records task and client goal, natural cue, eligible opportunity, ordinary supports, AAC and backup, client-selected aid, requested help and partner response, response window, response, independence definition, prompt form and provider, prompt level and timing, prompt hierarchy version, fading or delay, error correction, reinforcement, teaching trial or probe, access failure, withdrawal, health context, observer, source, correction, generalization setting, client experience, and qualified decision. Prompted accuracy and independent performance keep separate denominators.

Willow’s scoring guide begins with the support a person normally has in that setting. It distinguishes an accessible instruction, a visual schedule, a mobility aid, AAC, a chosen checklist, and naturally available help from a teaching prompt added for the target response. Requested help is recorded as communication, together with whether the partner responded and how quickly. If a prompt occurs, the entry names its form, timing, provider, and relation to the response. A broad label such as “independent” is withheld until the record shows the natural cue, ordinary supports, response window, and absence of the prompts that the active definition excludes. When a support changes, Willow starts a new version and compares like conditions. This keeps improvement claims from depending on removed access or hidden assistance.

Make Willow's documentation usable during care

Willow gives staff the current definition and version at the point of observation, shows which supports and prompt states matter, and provides a quick route for access failure, withdrawal, health concern, missing evidence, or plan conflict. The workflow preserves the original observation and routes interpretation to the qualified clinician. Dashboards show due, missing, invalid, corrected, and open work rather than presenting only a polished average.

Protect client access and clinical authority for Willow

Willow keeps direct client communication, AAC, chosen supports, consent and assent when applicable, dissent, privacy, health, safety, priorities, burden, and ordinary access visible. Administrative staff and software may calculate or flag evidence. They do not diagnose, prescribe, author the client's message, decide clinical fit, or convert a payer action into a treatment recommendation.

Work through Willow's fictional example

Willow reviews 36 opportunities. Fifteen are independent with ordinary supports, eight include requested help, seven use planned prompts, two are correction trials, two lack AAC access, one ends with withdrawal, and one is invalid after the task changes. The two access failures do not become client errors. The numbers teach evidence structure and denominator discipline. They do not establish treatment effect, medical necessity, payer approval, legal compliance, or a universal clinical standard.

Keep Willow's measures honest

Independent performance is 15 of 30 valid, accessible opportunities not designated as correction trials, or 50.0%. Requested-help use is 8 of 30, or 26.7%. Prompted success, corrections, access failures, and withdrawal remain separate. The example supports description, not a treatment-effect claim.

Address Willow's main evidence risk

A prompt code without timing or source can hide partner behavior and make a prompt feel client-owned. Record what the partner did and when, then assess whether fading fits the client's goal and preference.

Test Willow's record against hard cases

Willow tests speech, AAC, gesture, mobility support, visual schedule, requested help, response and stimulus prompts, delayed prompt, correction, self-correction, probe, inaccessible device, withdrawal, and generalization setting.

Review Willow's decision handoff

Willow confirms the active definition and plan version, source and author, opportunity and observation boundaries, supports and prompts, raw counts, missing and invalid states, client communication, integrity, context, unwanted effects, qualified interpretation, decision, correction route, downstream recipients, unresolved work, owner, and next review date before a claim reaches a graph, summary, plan, payer package, or external disclosure.

Scope Willow's clinical sources carefully

Willow uses the CASP Version 3.0 public summary for high-level individualized assessment, implementation, and evaluation scope for ABA treatment of people diagnosed with autism. The detailed guidelines require a license. The current BACB Ethics Code applies to covered people and addresses competence, client involvement, consent and assent when applicable, risk, data, documentation, and evaluation. BACB has no separate organizational jurisdiction.

Use Willow's measurement outline as education, not a protocol

Willow uses the BCBA Test Content Outline, 6th edition for examination-content concepts including operational definitions, measurement, validity, reliability, representative sampling, graphing, client-informed goals, integrity, generalization, maintenance, unwanted effects, and data-based decisions. It does not establish licensure, a treatment protocol, a universal threshold, a payer rule, or case authority.

Keep Willow's integrity evidence within its research limits

Willow uses the Ferguson and colleagues treatment-integrity guide for observable component and opportunity design without treating it as one required clinical method. The Essig, Rotta, and Poling review supports caution about fidelity and observer-agreement reporting. Research reporting frequencies do not create a universal clinical fidelity score, observer sample, or mastery rule.

Include Willow's direct client experience and communication

Willow treats the Breaux and Smith assent paper as practice guidance in an evolving, limited evidence base rather than a separate BACB mandate. The communication review supports attending to generalization, maintenance, and social-validity omissions without prescribing a universal probe count. ASHA's AAC portal says AAC users should always have access to their tools or devices.

Avoid universal mastery claims in Willow's record

Willow uses the mastery-practice survey and experimental mastery evaluation only to show that criteria and later performance are empirical questions. Published procedures, samples, and findings do not create one percentage, consecutive-session rule, generalization test, maintenance interval, or prediction for another person. Raw counts, timing, context, and person-specific review remain necessary.

Choose Willow's next review trigger

Willow reopens the support-and-prompt context record after a definition, goal, measure, prompt, support, setting, client preference, communication method, health condition, procedure, staff role, system, payer source, correction, unwanted effect, missingness pattern, or audit finding changes. The review preserves the old version and records the new evidence, effective date, affected people and records, owner, communication, and validation.

Close Willow's evidence record without hiding limits

Review the support-and-prompt context record with the client and authorized people as applicable, qualified clinicians, measurement and quality leaders, and the specialists named in the manifest. Confirm source, definition, access, opportunity, prompts, integrity, outcome, experience, health context, causal limits, correction, and downstream use. Keep uncertainty and open cases visible, and keep this page draft and noindex until every required external review is complete.

Document ABA Prompts, Independence, Help, and Ordinary Supports