A delayed effect after a single-case phase change appears only after one or more observations in the new condition. Define latency from actual implementation to the first sustained pattern change, preserve every intervening point, and examine learning time, dosage, carryover, measurement, and context. Delay can be plausible for some outcomes, yet weaker immediacy reduces the clarity of the temporal relation and increases alternative explanations.

Define the latency clock

Use the actual condition implementation as time zero and specify whether latency is measured in sessions, days, opportunities, or minutes.

Define the response-change event

State the level, trend, variability, or sustained pattern that ends the latency period before reviewing the outcome.

Preserve intervening observations

Show every point after implementation. Relabeling the boundary to the first favorable value creates a false immediate effect.

Check delivery and response dynamics

Review training, dosage, carryover, prompting, access, task exposure, and the plausible time needed for the target to change.

Seek repeated timing evidence

Compare delay across planned replications and report inconsistent latency rather than averaging it away.

Build Kai's delayed-effect timeline

For the delayed effect after single-case phase change question, create a versioned delayed-effect timeline. Preserve the target definition, unit, opportunity or observation time, raw series, graph, phase boundaries, design logic, predicted changes, planned demonstrations, actual implementation, measurement quality, client input, access and safety evidence, context, reviewer judgments, and claim status. The record should let another qualified reviewer reconstruct Kai's evidence without relying on a summary score.

Work through Kai's replication example

Kai's baseline counts are 2, 3, 2, and 3, so the baseline maximum is 3. After the condition changes, the six counts are 3, 3, 4, 8, 9, and 8. If sustained change means three consecutive values above the baseline maximum, the first qualifying run is 4, 8, and 9 at intervention positions 3 through 5. Two earlier observations intervene before that run begins, and the criterion is first satisfied at the fifth intervention observation. Counting only 8, 9, and 8 would require a different threshold than “above the baseline maximum.” Display every value, phase, denominator, and time sequence. This fictional clinic communication-partner study example illustrates one evidence pattern and does not establish a universal phase length, effect threshold, functional relation, treatment recommendation, or review outcome.

Audit Kai's design evidence

Kai's timeline records the true implementation time, all six intervention points, session spacing, dose delivered, partner training, access, health, and competing changes. It avoids moving the phase boundary to the first high value, which would falsely create immediacy. The audit also checks graph axes, session spacing, invalid and missing states, implementation fidelity, condition discriminability, carryover, definition changes, concurrent events, software settings, and correction history. A missing field does not become a negative value or disappear from the denominator.

Address Kai's main inference risk

A delayed pattern can reflect a genuine acquisition process, gradual dosage, unrelated history, accumulating practice, or delayed implementation. Kai's report lists those possibilities and seeks planned replication rather than selecting the preferred story. Reviewers describe the raw pattern first, then the narrower conclusion it supports. A clinical improvement can be real and valuable even when the design cannot attribute it confidently, and a strong experimental contrast can still lack personal importance.

Decide the next evidence step for Kai

Later tiers or phases can show whether similar delays recur after the same condition change. The team also asks whether the latency matters clinically to Kai and whether the plan should be adjusted within qualified authority. The responsible clinician and methodologist choose any added observation, replication, design change, or claim revision. The choice protects needed care, uses prospectively stated rules where possible, and preserves the original graph and decision history.

Protect Kai's access and participation

Keep Kai's augmentative and alternative communication, interpreters, mobility, food, water, bathroom use, prescribed care, health support, rest, relationships, and emergency help available throughout the clinic communication-partner study. Use accessible consent and assent processes when applicable and respond to withdrawal, dissent, or distress. A replication plan never supplies authority to withhold a necessary support or delay urgent action.

Apply current sources to Kai's review

Kai's source review treats immediacy as one visual feature and keeps delayed effects within the full replication and context analysis. 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 supplies a current research-review framework. A single-case design review, systematic visual-analysis protocols, current analytic reflections, nonconcurrent multiple-baseline methods research, and a visual-analysis software tutorial describe methods and limits. ASHA supports continuous AAC access.

Rehearse Kai's review process

Before live use, run the delayed-effect timeline on fictional graphs with a strong effect, weak effect, delayed effect, opposite trend, carryover, missing agreement, one contradictory tier, and no replication. Confirm that reviewers preserve raw values, count planned opportunities separately from observed demonstrations, identify holds, and keep client relevance distinct from causal inference. Store test cases, expected decisions, software version, and correction log.

Close Kai's claim review

Review the delayed-effect timeline with Kai, the responsible clinician, and a methodologist familiar with the exact design. Preserve raw data, graph, design protocol, basic effects, demonstrations, fidelity, measurement checks, contextual events, client input, reviewer disagreements, source standard, final wording, and limits. Keep the page draft and noindex until all manifest-named reviews are complete.

Related resources

Sources