A prospective phase-change rule states before the decision what evidence, minimum observations, clinical prerequisites, access supports, safety conditions, decision owner, and exception path govern the next phase. It names the design mechanism and preserves the actual release. The rule guides judgment without converting a stability score into automatic treatment authority. Urgent care, assent withdrawal, or safety needs can override timing and remain documented.

Name the timing mechanism

State whether phase length is fixed, response-guided, randomized, or governed by another prospective protocol. Each mechanism creates different records.

Define the analytic evidence

List minimum observations, graph features, measurement checks, context coverage, and the uncertainty that reviewers must address.

Add clinical and participation gates

Include qualified clinical approval, accessible consent and assent when applicable, communication access, health, safety, staffing, and setting readiness.

Assign decision and implementation owners

The person who judges readiness may differ from the person who schedules or delivers the change. Record both actions and times.

Write the exception route

Specify who acts during urgent need, withdrawal, equipment failure, absence, or protocol conflict and how the design consequence is reviewed.

Build Noah's prospective phase-release rule

For the prospective phase-change rule single-case design question, create a versioned prospective phase-release rule. 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 Noah's phase decision occurred without relying on memory.

Work through Noah's baseline example

Noah's rule requires at least five eligible observations, current measurement agreement checks, access to his communication system, no unresolved health concern, and a review of level, trend, and variability. It allows observations 5 through 9. At observation 6, the clinical and methods reviewers document readiness and release the next phase; operations records implementation for observation 7. Show the raw series and all denominators before adding summaries. This fictional clinic communication study 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 Noah

Noah's record distinguishes the decision time, planned implementation, and actual implementation. It includes six observations, the graph version, reviewer identities, each gate, an open equipment issue that was resolved, Noah's assent response, and the reason observation 7 became the first point in the new phase. 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 Noah

A rule such as three stable points is incomplete. It omits the meaning of stable, measurement quality, representation, design logic, and clinical authority. Noah's rule uses observable components and an owner for each gate so software can surface evidence without making the decision. 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 Noah

If a gate fails, the record shows whether the team collects more data, repairs measurement, changes design, pauses research, or begins clinically necessary care with an explicit inference limit. The original rule and every amendment stay available. 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 Noah's access and participation

Keep Noah'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 study. 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 Noah's decision

Noah's sources inform the analytic checks while the page assigns clinical, access, and safety decisions to their qualified owners. 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 Noah's review before live use

Run the prospective phase-release rule with a fictional series before it governs Noah'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 Noah's phase-decision review

Review the prospective phase-release rule with Noah, 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.

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