Intermittent Progress Monitoring: Rethinking Data-Collection in Speech Therapy – Part 2

In Part 1 of this Blog Series on Rethinking Data-Collection in Speech Therapy I tried to hammer home the ideas that:

• MORE data doesn’t mean BETTER data
• At a moment in time, you should EITHER be measuring progress OR making change – NOT both.

Because the problem with collecting data while you’re doing therapy is that we’re therapists – not robots. We’re constantly changing what we do to best help a child in that moment. And that inherently makes for really bad data.

One of the simplest ways to do this is to collect data intermittently. This means that you do not always have your data sheet out, and you are not tracking every single thing a child does.

Consider a classroom teacher teaching spelling:

Pre-Test: The teacher simply reads a list of words out loud and the kids do their best to spell them. The teacher doesn’t give hints or teach their students spelling patterns as they work. No, they just read the words and then grade the test.

Teaching: Then, the teacher spends all week employing a variety of strategies to help those kids learn the words. They may learn patterns, they may spell out words with their fingers in the sand. They may drill the words by writing them 10 times. They may make up poems to help them remember. Who knows – I’m not a spelling teacher. But the point is – you know what the teacher is NOT doing all week long? Testing them.

Post-Test: Students do not walk in the door every day and retake the same test over and over until they learn it. No, the teacher spends their time during the week using all sorts of teaching techniques, and then finally, at the end of the week, the teacher sits the kids down and measures what they learned with a spelling test that looks mysteriously similar to the one they did at the beginning of the week.

The teacher gets back up in front of the class and reads the same list, in the same way, without helping the students.

It makes sense, right? Measure, teach measure. But somehow in speech therapy, it feels like we’re a long way from this and we feel the need to be CONSTANTLY writing down every single thing a child does as a data point. And we all know not all relevant acts translate into pretty little data points.

So instead, let’s adopt a pattern of collecting data intermittently – where we have a brief period of measurement, followed by a period of teaching, and then circle back to measure our progress.

I consider this process of data collection and therapy to have three-ish alternating phases:

Phase 1: Baseline Data Collection

In this “session,” your job is simply to collect baseline data on any skill you may target between now and the next data collection session.

You will look ahead at the goals you are likely to target before you measure again, and collect data on these.

Here are the important parts:

• You want the child to do the skill at the highest level of independence possible.
• You are collecting data on things you will be teaching, not things they’re already good at.
• You are NOT providing any sort of prompts, cues, feedback, visuals, ANYTHING, etc., in order to improve their skills.

Your job is NOT to have them perform at their best, nor is it to teach anything at all. You are simply measuring. (You can do your magic next session!)

Phase 2: Therapy

Now that you have data to tell you where you started – you can do what you do best – teach. You can implement all the techniques and skills you have to help the students make progress on those goals you measured.

You can absolutely keep those data sheets out and jot down pertinent information. For example, sometimes I might write something like, “Had much more success today with bunched R than retroflex R – let’s stick to that,” or, “Used multiple past tense verbs today independently when talking about his weekend.” But for the most part, my focus is on the therapy, not the data.

You will continue to do therapy until the next data-collection session comes around.

Phase 3: Progress Monitoring

You will pull out that data from your baseline and collect it again the exact same way (no prompts, cues, or extra input). Remember the spelling teacher?

Resist the urge to “teach.” This isn’t the time.

During this time, you will also consider what new goals you may touch on over the next period of time and make sure you collect baseline data on those. Remember, you always want to be looking ahead at what you will be working on, not just collecting data on what you’ve already started. It’s the best way to show the work you’ve done!