Start with the record’s limits
An ABC record describes an antecedent, an observable behaviour and what followed. If you need help collecting those notes for a first appointment, use the existing consultation-preparation guide linked below. This page focuses on what to ask once you have several records.
A repeated sequence is a clue, not proof of intention or cause. Adults may notice some events more readily than others, and important information may be missing. Interpretation belongs alongside the child’s communication, developmental, health and environmental context.
Compare opportunities as well as incidents
A count is easier to understand when you know how often the situation occurred. If a difficulty happened twice during two transitions one week and twice during ten transitions another week, the same incident count describes different circumstances. This arithmetic does not establish whether an intervention caused a change.
Compare similar activities and note differences in support, task difficulty, sleep or health. Include occasions that went well. Do not create extra difficult situations to make the record look more complete.
Keep more than one explanation in view
Imagine a child regularly leaves a noisy lunch queue and an adult follows to offer help. The record does not establish that the child left to obtain attention. Noise, waiting, discomfort, uncertainty about the routine or several factors could be relevant.
Ask what information would help distinguish those possibilities safely. The child’s account, ordinary observations in a quieter setting and a discussion of the routine may help. Families should not deliberately remove support or provoke distress to test a hypothesis.
Separate observation from interpretation
A factual note might say “covered ears and moved to the door”. An interpretation might be “the room may have been overwhelming”. Keep that distinction visible so a later reader can see what was observed and what still needs checking.
For students and educators, discuss uncertainty explicitly rather than turning a few rows into a formal functional assessment. Missing data should remain missing; do not fill gaps with guesses. Use de-identified illustrative material for learning and follow consent and supervision requirements for real records.
Read an example without jumping to a conclusion
Illustrative entry: “After lunch, the teacher placed a worksheet on the desk. The child pushed it away and said ‘no’. The teacher read the first question aloud, and the child answered verbally.” The observation is the sequence; “the child refuses all work” is an interpretation that the entry does not establish.
Questions for review include whether reading the question was difficult, whether writing was uncomfortable, and whether the instruction was understood. Compare ordinary occasions with spoken and written tasks, including successful ones. Those comparisons can guide assessment, but they do not isolate a cause as a controlled experiment would.
Check missing information before comparing records
If one carer writes “three incidents” and another records every repeated movement separately, their totals describe different things. Agree a plain definition of the action and how a new episode is recognised. Mark estimates as estimates; do not manufacture precise times from memory.
Notice blanks as well as numbers. No entry might mean nothing happened, nobody observed the routine, or the day was too busy to write. Ask which interpretation is correct. A small, honest record with those limits is more useful than a complete-looking table that hides uncertainty.
Take useful questions to a review
Ask which patterns appear consistent, what alternative explanations remain and whether the next step is a supportive adjustment or further assessment. Agree how communication, participation and wellbeing will be checked alongside incident counts.
Store records privately and share only relevant information with agreed professionals or carers. An increasing number of incidents, new pain or a sudden change may require prompt advice rather than more data collection. The purpose of reviewing a chart is a better support decision, not a label or a completed spreadsheet.