In my previous post I talked about how to assess your child’s behaviors by using an ABC record keeping system.  In this post we will continue discussing ways to observe and record data for behaviors you wish to change. In order to enact change or treat a condition such as ADHD, you have to be able to look at the symptoms in an objective way. Record keeping will allow you to see patterns and trends which can give you some very important information to share with the doctors, therapists, teachers, or anyone who is working with your child.

One way such data can be useful is in deciding whether or not a particular treatment is effective or not. There are two primary methods for treating the symptoms of ADHD and they include behavior management techniques and ADHD medications. Alternative methods for treating ADHD may include a change in diet  or using a sensory integration approach. You may decide to try one treatment approach or a combination of several methods.

Regardless of your choice of treatment, you will want to devise some system for telling you whether or not this treatment is working or not. Here are some easy ways you can take a look at your child’s symptoms and behaviors in order to gage the success of your chosen ADHD treatment:

1. Recording the frequency of a behavior: The way that you do this is to first define the behavior you wish to examine. Let’s say that your child’s teacher has just started a behavioral program to deal with your child’s behavior of talking out of turn. She may define this behavior objectively as: Shouting out answers without raising hand first, talking during stated quiet times, and interrupting when others are already talking. In order to evaluate whether or not the behavioral program is effective she may choose time periods to mark down how often your child engages in the talking out of turn behavior.

For example between the hour of 10 am to 11 am she may keep a simply tally sheet of the number of times your child talks out of turn. If the behavioral program is working, of course you expect to see those tally marks decrease over time.

You can find a frequency/behavior count form from the Kansas Institute for Positive Behavioral support web site.

2. Recording the duration of a behavior: Let’s say that you have a child who has meltdowns or outbursts of crying and who needs time to regroup before regaining enough composure to resume an activity. In this case you may want to record how long the meltdown lasts from start to finish before the child is calm again. You will want to have this data before using any new treatments so that you have a baseline comparison of how long these meltdowns last without treatment. After implementing treatment (let’s say your child is placed on a medication to help regulate mood) you will again record the duration of any meltdowns. Hopefully, if the particular treatment is effective, you will see a reduction in the amount of time these meltdowns last. If the duration of the outbursts remain the same over weeks and months or increases, then you know that you have to make a change in your child’s treatment plan.