A review of visual analysis reporting procedures in the functional communication training literature.

Abstract

Few guidelines exist for conducting and reporting visual analysis procedures and results in single-case research. Previous research examining how authors describe their analytic procedures and results has found that authors use key terms such as level, trend, and variability infrequently. Additionally, in a previous review, the authors rarely agreed with the original study authors on their conclusions. The purpose of this study was to document single-case researchers' analytic procedures, including use of key visual analysis terms; description of data features; within- and between-condition analysis; and inclusion of descriptive statistics, effect sizes, or inferential statistics in the literature on a common Tier 3 behavior intervention, functional communication training. We also compared our determinations about functional relations to the authors' conclusions. Our results suggest that most authors describe level, but almost a third did not describe trend or variability. Agreement with study authors was better than in previous studies but still below minimally acceptable thresholds. We discuss areas for future research and implications for reporting the analysis and results of single-case research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).