To document a response-guided phase change, preserve the exact graph and data available at the decision, the prospective readiness rule, reviewer, timestamp, clinical and access gates, rationale, planned change, and actual implementation. Keep later outcomes out of the original decision record. If the phase changes for safety, assent, access, or urgent care, record that authority and the resulting design limitation clearly.
Freeze the decision snapshot
Store the raw series, graph version, definitions, exclusions, and context available at the exact decision time. Include the display scale and every eligible observation.
Show the rule that governed
Link the approved version and record how each analytic, clinical, access, safety, and participation component was resolved.
Separate decision from implementation
Record when readiness was judged, when the change was planned, and when it actually occurred.
Preserve disagreements and overrides
Keep reviewer differences, urgent care decisions, assent withdrawal, and operational delays with named authority and rationale.
Lock the later interpretation
State how response-guided timing affects visual, statistical, or descriptive analysis before choosing the most favorable result.
Build Amina's response-guided decision log
For the document response-guided phase change single-case question, create a versioned response-guided decision log. Record the target, measurement unit, eligible opportunities or observation time, scale, desired direction, raw series, missing and invalid states, context, graph version, timing mechanism, decision rule, reviewers, clinical gates, participation response, decision time, actual change, deviations, and follow-up. The record should let another qualified reviewer reconstruct why Amina's phase decision occurred without relying on memory.
Work through Amina's baseline example
Amina has six baseline observations. At 3:10 p.m. after observation 6 is locked, the reviewer opens graph version 4, applies the approved rule, and records ready. Amina confirms willingness through her usual communication method. Operations schedules the phase change for the next visit, and the first intervention point is logged two days later. Show the raw series and all denominators before adding summaries. This fictional library study-skills program example illustrates one decision pattern and does not create a universal stability percentage, point count, phase duration, treatment rule, or causal conclusion.
Audit the evidence available for Amina
Amina's log includes the six values, valid and missing flags, graph hash, rule version, reviewer, decision time, each clinical and participation gate, rationale, scheduled start, delivered start, and any mismatch. Permissions prevent later data from silently replacing the decision snapshot. The audit also checks data-entry history, definition version, observer training, agreement when needed, graph axes, session spacing, exclusions, phase labels, source timestamps, and access to original records. Unresolved discrepancies remain visible and pause any claim that depends on them.
Address the main interpretation risk for Amina
A note written after the outcome appears can turn hindsight into a plausible-sounding rationale. Amina's contemporaneous snapshot shows what the reviewer knew and which rule was applied. Later corrections retain the original entry, author, time, and reason. The review describes the observed pattern in original units, names plausible alternatives, and separates a methods judgment from a clinical recommendation. Software may calculate, graph, and surface missing evidence; qualified people interpret the series and make decisions within their authority.
Use the later phase responsibly for Amina
The final report states that timing was response-guided, shows the decision record, and discusses how adaptive timing affects inference. It does not describe the phase length as fixed or randomized unless those mechanisms truly governed another component. Visual analysis examines level, trend, variability, immediacy, overlap, and consistency across comparable phases or tiers. A supplemental statistic can summarize a defined feature. It cannot establish clinical importance, functional relation, consent, authorization, or treatment fit on its own.
Protect Amina's access and participation
Keep Amina's augmentative and alternative communication, interpreters, mobility, food, water, bathroom use, prescribed care, health support, rest, relationships, and emergency help available throughout the library study-skills program. Use accessible consent and assent processes when applicable and respond to withdrawal, dissent, or distress. Necessary safety or clinical action proceeds through qualified authority even when it changes the planned phase timing.
Apply current sources to Amina's decision
Amina's page translates the research discussion of response-guided decisions into an auditable clinical and methods record. The BACB ethics hub and CASP public summary provide professional context, while the BCBA Test Content Outline identifies examination content on measurement and single-case design. The WWC Version 5.0 handbook is a research-review standard. A single-case design review describes within-phase and between-phase visual analysis. Research on waiting for baseline stability examines response-guided timing, and work on systematic visual protocols, current analytic reflections, and visual-analysis software clarifies methods and limits. ASHA supports continuous AAC access.
Rehearse Amina's review before live use
Run the response-guided decision log with a fictional series before it governs Amina's data. Test minimum and maximum observations, missing values, equal timestamps, trend in both directions, extreme points, floor and ceiling values, a failed access gate, assent withdrawal, delayed implementation, and an amended rule. Store expected decisions, reviewer rationale, screenshots or graph versions, software version, and correction history. The rehearsal tests mechanics while leaving the live judgment to qualified reviewers.
Close Amina's phase-decision review
Review the response-guided decision log with Amina, the responsible clinician, and a methodologist familiar with the design. Preserve raw data, graph, rule, decision snapshot, reviewers, client input, access and safety evidence, phase implementation, deviations, sensitivity checks, later outcomes, and inference limits. Keep the page draft and noindex until the manifest-named reviews are complete.
Related resources
- How to Review Floor and Ceiling Effects in a Single-Case Baseline
- How Fixed, Response-Guided, and Randomized Phase Lengths Differ
- How to Reduce Regression-to-the-Mean Risk in a Single-Case Phase Change
- What to Do When a Single-Case Baseline Never Stabilizes
Sources
- Behavior Analyst Certification Board, Ethics Information and Ethics Codes
- Council of Autism Service Providers, ABA Practice Guidelines Version 3.0 public summary
- Behavior Analyst Certification Board, BCBA Test Content Outline, 6th edition
- What Works Clearinghouse Procedures and Standards Handbook, Version 5.0
- Single-Case Design, Analysis, and Quality Assessment for Intervention Research
- Waiting for Baseline Stability in Single-Case Designs: Is It Worth the Time and Effort?
- Systematic Protocols for the Visual Analysis of Single-Case Research Data
- Advancing the Application and Use of Single-Case Research Designs
- A Tutorial for Software Options to Aid in Assessing Functional Relations in Single-Case Experimental Designs
- American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, Augmentative and Alternative Communication