BEHAVIOR RECORDING

Shatavisa Majumder
M.Phil Clinical Psychology- II
Supervised by Ms. Sakshi Rai
Behavior Modification
• It is an active intervention approach whereby caregivers

 Observe, measure and evaluate current observable

behavioural patterns,

Identify environmental antecedents and consequences

Establish new behavioural objectives and

Advance the learning of new behaviour or modify behaviour

via the manipulation of identified antecedents and
consequences.
Behavioural Assessment

One fundamental aspect of behavior modification is measuring the

behavior that is targeted for change. Measurement of the target
behavior in behavior modification is called behavioral assessment.
Behaviour assessment is a continuous process and it involves
gathering information in most objective way about both the skill
behaviours and problem behaviours in a given individual
(Peshawaria et al, 1992).
 It is important for number of reasons:
• Measuring the behavior before treatment provides information that
can help determine whether treatment is necessary.
• It can provide information that helps to choose the best treatment.
• Measuring the target behavior before and after treatment allows to
determine whether the behavior changed after the treatment was
implemented.
Types of Behavioral Assessment
Indirect Assessment:
• Involves using interviews, questionnaires and rating scale to obtain information
on the target behavior from the person exhibiting the behavior or from others
(parents, teachers or staffs).
• It does not occur when a target behavior occurs but relies on an individual’s
recall of the target behavior.
Direct Assessment:
• A person observes and records the target behavior as it occurs.
• The observer must be in close proximity to the person exhibiting the behavior so
that the target behavior can be seen or heard.
• Target behavior must be precisely defined so that its occurance can be
distinguished from occurances of other behaviors.
 When a school psychologist interviews the student’s teachers and ask the
teacher how many times the child interacts usually with other children
on the playground, the psychologist is using indirect assessment.

 When he observes a socially withdrawn child at playground and records

each social interaction with another child, the psychologist is using
direct assessment.
Direct assessment vs Indirect assessment
• D.A is usually more accurate than I.A.
• In DA the observer is trained specifically to observe the target behavior and
record its occurance immediately. Most research in behavior modification relies
on direct assessment.
• In IA information regarding target behavior depends on people’s memories,
people providing information may not have been trained to observe the target
behavior and may not have noticed all the occurances of the behavior. It may be
based on incomplete information about the target behavior.

The steps needed to develop behavior recording plan:

• Defining the target behavior
• Determining the logistic of recording
• Choosing a recording method
• Choosing a recording instrument
Identifying and Defining The Target Behavior
• A target behavior is a behavior that is targeted for observation,
measurement, and/or modification. It is identifies by the
caregivers as the behavior needing to be learned, increased or
decreased.
• In identifying and prioritizing the target behavior that need to
be modified or eliminated certain questions should be raised:
Is the behavior dangerous to the child and to others in the child’s
environment?
Is the behavior interfering with the child’s academic performance?
Is the behavior interfering with the child’s social interaction or
causing the child to be socially isolated from the peers?
Is the behavior interfering with effective parental interaction (eg,
bonding or communication)?
Is the reduction of the behavior likely to produce positive outcome
for the child in the areas of academic performance and social
acceptance?
Cooper, Heron and Heward (1987) offered several questions for caregivers to consider
before teaching new behavior:
 How functional is the new behavior? How many opportunities will the child have to
use the new behavior in everyday settings and situations?
 Will this new behavior provide opportunities for the child to receive positive
attention from and make more acceptable to significant caregivers and peers?
 Will the new behavior assist the child in becoming more independent in both daily
living and social functioning?

Once the target behavior is identified, it must be clearly defined so that it can be
objectively observed and measured.
• A behavioral definition is objective and unambiguos.
• It must be observable and measurable. Observable means you can see the
behavior as it occurs. Measurable means you can quantify the frequency,
duration and other dimensions of the behavior.
• After seeing the definiton, different people must observe the same behavior
and agree that the behavior is occurring. When two people independently
observe the same behavior both record that the behavior occurred. This is
calle interobserver agreement or interobserver reliability.
• The example of target behavior does not refer to any internal state such as
being angry, upset or sad, since these can not be observed and recorded
by another person.
• The definition does not make inference about people’s intention as
intention can not be observed.
• A label is not used to define a behavior because labels are ambiguous and
it does not identify the person’s actions and may mean different to
different people.
• Target behavior should be presented in positiv eterms i.e. in terms of how
children should behave instead of stating how children should not
behave.
Unsportsmanlike behavior (label) may mean fighting with a member
of the other team to one person whereas another person considers it to
mean cursing, throwing a bat or kicking dirt.
Assetiveness (label) – When Ramu says no to someone who asks him
to do something that is not part of his job, when he asks his coworkers
not to smoke in office or to knock before entering his cabin, it is
defined as assertiveness (Behavioral definition).
In case of mental retardation the target behavior can be both:
Deficit behavior or skill behavior Excess behavior or problem
Self help skill (feeding, toileting, behavior
brushing etc) Violent and destructive behavior
Temper tantrum
Gross motor behavior
Hyperactivity
Communication skill Self injurious behavior
Social skill Repetitive behavior
Academic skill
Vocational skill

Observable target behavior Nonobservable target behavior

Rohit will complete his assignments Rohit will be a good boy during
during math class. maths class.
John will ask for a break when he is John will think before he acts when
angry. he is angry.
Ria will say ‘Thank You’ when given Ria will understand the importance
gifts for her birthday. of saying ‘Thank You’.
 Behavioral Objective
An anticipated behavior, new or modified from current behavior, subsequent
to the completion of a behavior change program.
Includes several basic element:
• Terminal behavior: “Nil will remain in seat”
• Specific condition in which the target behaviours are to occur: “During
math class.”
• Behavioral criteria i.e. level of performance: “For 45 consecutive
minutes”
• A specified number of consecutive observation or duration during
which the behavioral criteria must be executed : “3 maths classes”

E.g. When a response sheet is given (condition), Ram will solve (terminal
behaviour) 8 out of 10 sums of addition (criteria) by the end of 3 months
(consecutive observation or duration).
The Logistics Of Recording
THE OBSERVER:
• The observer may be a professional, such as a behavior analyst or a psychologist,
or a person routinely associated with the client in the client’s natural
environment such as a teacher, parent, staff member or supervisor.
• The observer must have proximity to the client.
• The observer must be trained to identify the occurrence of the target behavior
and to record the behavior immediately.
• When the client observes and records his or her own target behavior, called self
monitoring. It is valuable when the target behavior occurs infrequently or
occurs only when no one else is present (eg, hair pulling).
WHEN AND WHERE TO RECORD:
• It is important to choose an observation period when the behavior is likely to occur.
 If a patient in psychiatric hospital is more likely to show disruptive behavior (screaming and
abusing) during mealtime the observation period should be scheduled during mealtimes.
• The timing is also determined by the availability of the observer with client’s guardian’s
consent.
• Observation take place in natural setting (in classroom) or analogue setting (in clinic).
 Choosing A Recording Method
Anecdotal Observation: The ABC Analysis
 First described by Bijou, Peterson and Ault (1968)
 Helps to identify events that are maintaining
inappropriate behavior, appropriate behavior that
are not reinforced, social skills that need to be
learned and environmental condition that need
modification in order to promote appropriate
behavior and decrease the probability of
inappropriate behavior.
 Problem behaviours are said to have one or more
of the following functions.
• Tangible (includes objects, eatables etc)
• Attention seeking
• Escape from a given situation / task
• Self – stimulatory.
• And sometimes problem behaviours may occur
due to skill deficits. For e.g., a child may pull
objects from others just because he does not know
• Antecedents are the stimuli, settings, and contexts that occur before and
influence the behaviour. It includes the following :

Why a behaviour occurs

When it occurs
Where it occurs
With whom it occurs.
• Behaviour are the acts that the individual do or not do. It is the focus of the
program.

• Consequences are the events that follow behaviour and may include influences
that increase, decrease or have no impact on what the individual does. The
concept of consequence can be described on the basis of reinforcement,
punishment and extinction.
 ANTECEDENT BEHAVIOR CONSEQUENCE FUNCTION

Teacher puts Raju sweeps his Teacher sends Escape

Raju’s book on his books on to the him out of the
desk in front of floor. class as
him. punishment.

Mother starts Ria starts Mother Attention seeking

feeding Ria’s little shouting and immediately
brother. demanding for comes and gives
food. food to her.
 CONTINUOUS RECORDING
• The observer observes the client continuously throughout the observation period
and records each occurrence of the behavior.
• Observer must be able to identify the onset and offset of each instance of the
behavior.
FREQUENCY/EVENT RECORDING:
• The number of times the behavior occurs during observation period eg. The
number of cigarettes one smokes (onset is lighting the cigarette and offset is
putting it out).
• It is the method of choice when the objective is to increase or decrease the number
of occurrences of a behaviour.
• It should be used when target behaviours are discrete i.e., it should have clear
beginning and end, uniform in duration, brief and repeatable.
• It should not be used if the frequency of a behaviour is too high to count or has a
long duration.
• Frequency may be reported as RATE i.e. frequency divided by the number of
minutes or hours of observation time. It is useful when the observation periods are
not constant and vary in duration.
John is noncompliant 10 times during a five-hour observation period, John’s
hourly rate of noncompliant is 2.
Frequency Data Sheet

Put an “x” into a box each time a behavior occurs.

DATE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Daily
total
2.5.17

3.5.17

4.5.17

Day/Time Observation Period Frequency Rate per minute

2.5.17 30 min 10 .33 per min

3.5.17 20 min 8 .40 per min

4.5.17 15 min 8 .53 per min

5.5.17 30 min 12 .40 per min

DURATION RECORDING:
• The total amount of time occupied by the behavior from
start to finish eg. The number of hours a student studies per
day.
• May be reported by percentage of time, duration divided by
the time of the observation period.
• Its focus is on a temporal dimension rather than the
numerical. This technique is used when the primary
concern is to increase or decrease the length of time a
person engages in particular behaviour.
• Can be recorded as total duration and average duration.
A child had 3 tantrums during one class period lasting 10, 5,
3 minutes each, average duration is (10+5+3=18/3=6) 6
minutes. Total duration is 18 minutes.
Duration Data Sheet

Date/Time Frequency Start Time Stop Time Total Total

of Frequency Duration
Behavior
2.5.17 9:05 9:08 3 26 minutes
11:08 11:15
3:24 3:40
 INTENSITY/MAGNITUDE RECORDING
• Intensity refers to the force or
strength of a behavior. • “Very strong”, “strong”, “weak”, “very
• Useful with behaviors such as acts of weak”
aggression, temper tantrums, verbal • “Mild”, “moderate”, “severe”, “very severe”
responses or other noises or bodily • “Very loud”, “loud”, “quiet”, “very quiet”.
movements.
• Intensity measures are either
The above ratings provide very
estimates based on a predetermined
subjective measurement of behavior.
qualitative scale or for a more When these are used, precise criteria
objective measure, an automated should be established per rating and
apparatus used to measure a reliability checks by independent
behavior’s intensity. observers should be completed.
• E.g, measuring the loudness of
someone’s speech with a decibel
meter.
TARGET Very loud Loud Very quiet Quiet
BEHAVIOR

Talking 3 2 1 0
LATENCY RECORDING:
• It is the amount of time taken to begin a behavior once
person is provided a direction or instruction to complete a
task or modify a behavior (eg. The time taken to answer the
phone after it starts ringing).
• Useful when caregivers are concerned about children’s
compliance or behaviors related to following direction.
• When working with noncompliant children the objective is
to reduce the latency period to an acceptable level.
• The objective may be increasing latency period when a child
begins an activity before the teacher’s instruction is finished
that is too quick to answer resulting in many errors because
of short latencies.
CONTINUOUS RECORDING
• While using continuous
FREQUENCY/EVENT recording , the dimensions to
be chosen depends on which
aspect of the behavior is most
important and most sensitive to
DURATION change in the behavior after
treatment.
• To record person’s stuttering,
frequency may be most
INTENSITY
important dimension.
• To record tantrum behavior
(screaming, throwing toys,
LATENCY slamming doors)- number of
tantrums per day (frequency),
how long each tantrum
lasts(duration), how loud the
child screams or how forcefully
slams doors (intensity)
PRODUCT RECORDING
• Also called permanent product recording
• Indirect assessment method used when a behavior results in
certain tangible outcome
A supervisor could count the number of units assembled in a
factory as a product measure of a worker’s job performance.
Teacher could count the number of correctly completed
homework problems as a product measure of students
academic performance.
• One benefit is that the observer does not have to be present
when the behavior occurs.
• One drawback is that it can not be always determined who
engaged in the behavior that led to the product.
 INTERVAL RECORDING
• To use interval recording the observer divides the observation period into a number of smaller
time periods or intervals, observes the client throughout each consecutive interval and then
records whether the behavior occurred during that interval.
• It may be partial or whole interval recording.
• With partial interval recording, observer is not interested in the frequency or duration, simply
record whether the behavior occurred during each interval of time.
• Whole interval requires that the observer record the occurrence of the behavior only if the
behavior was present throughout the entire interval. Thus duration of behavior is monitored.
• Partial interval approach is preferred for behaviors that are short in duration (hitting and
touching)
• Whole interval approach is appropriate for behaviors that occur for an extended duration
(talking).
• It may be used to monitor the behavior of several children or behaviors at the same time. But
caregivers should not try to monitor more that 3 children or behaviors during a single
observtion period.
• One benefit of partial interval recording is it takes less time and effort.
Limitation:
• Frequency of the target behavior during an interval is not recorded.
• The size of the intervals will partly determine the recorded rate of the target behavior. For
example, a child’s frequency of hitting may have decreased from 10 to 5 per interval, the observer
would indicate only a “+” to indicate the target behavior. The observer will report that hitting is
still occurring 100% of the intervals.
Target behavior: On-task
10 minutes observation period: 30 seconds interval
9:00 9:01 9:02 9:03 9:04 9:05 9:06 9:07 9:08 9:09
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 11 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2
0 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
- + + + - + + - + + + - - + + + + - + +

Key: + =the behavior occurred during that interval

- = the behavior did not occur during the interval
Summary of interval recording observation:
Total number of intervals: 20
Intervals target behavior occurred: 14
Percentage of intervals behavior occurred: 70%
Intervals target behavior did not occur=6
Percentage of interval behavior did not occur= 30%

NAME 1 2 3 4 5
A 5 minutes
B observation
period : 30
C
seconds interval
 TIME SAMPLE RECORDING
• Also referred to as momentary time sampling.
• Like interval recording, here also the observer divides the total observation
period into smaller time intervals. But unlike interval recording in which the
observer records if the behavior occurred at any time during the interval,
time sampling requires the observer to record if the behavior was observed at
the end of the interval.
If Julia’s on-task behavior is monitored, the observer would look at Julia at the
end of each interval and record a “+” if she was on-task at that moment or a “-”
if she was not on-task.
• This recording is valuable because the observer does not have to observe the
behavior for the entire interval.
• It is mostly used when such behaviors are monitored that have some
duration. (on-task/off-task, in-seat/out-of-seat, talking)
• It is not to be used if occurrences are more during the interval than at the end
of the interval.
The total length of observation for time sampling may be significantly longer than interval
recording. The intervals in time sampling are usually minutes long whereas interval recording are
usually seconds long.
LIMITATION:
• As the length of the interval increases, the amount of observed behavior decreases. The
collected data are less likely to be consistent with the actual occurrence of the targeted behavior.
• If the child knows that the caregiver is monitoring his behavior and the caregiver is looking at
the child only at the end of a specific time interval, the child may modify his behavior so that the
target behavior is not observed at the end of the interval.

If this is a potential concern, the caregiver can:

• Keep the interval length a secret.
• Use interval recording instead of time sampling
• Vary the length of the interval

60 minute observation: 5-minutes interval

9:00-9:15 9:15-9:30 9:30-9:45 9:45-10:00

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
THANK YOU