Setting up data sheets for all the students on my OT caseload is a big part of my back to school prep each year. I’m all about “working smarter, not harder!”. Coming up with a streamlined system for how to document your students’ progress is so important! Sabrina has a great blog on how to use the SSE resource! To tailor it a bit more to OTs, I thought I’d write a blog about things I try to remember when creating data sheets! This is definitely still a work-in-progress for me! Each year I learn, grow and refine my systems in order to create a more streamlined process. Hopefully some of these ideas help you to get the wheels turning as you prepare for this school year!
What is included in the SSE Data Sheets Bundle?
The Special Education Data Sheets Print + Digital Bundle includes 37 Pages of digital data sheets! The ones I would foresee OTs using the most are highlighted below!
+ Goal Sheets [a template that is editable for your own specific needs]
+ Daily Sheets
+ Behavior
+ Toileting
+ Toileting [in collaboration with your classroom teacher if you are targeting toileting]
+ Behavior Tally [to support classroom teachers in tracking behavior]
+ Behavior
+ Community [if you attend community based instruction (CBI) trips with your students]
+ Lunch [I love to attend lunch with my kiddos to target self help skills!]
+ Morning
+ Pack Up
+ Tooth Brushing [I have several students with OT-supported ADL goals for toothbrushing]
+ Hand Washing [I have several students with OT-supported ADL goals for handwashing]
+ New Student
+ New Student Checklist
+ Task Box [great for student with pre-vocational skill goals!]
+ Independent
+ Blank Sheets [I always love to have a template when I create my own data sheets]
Things to Consider When Making Data Sheets
What do you need to measure?
First thing is first – break down the goal. What exactly is the goal measuring? This can be more challenging if you weren’t the therapist to write the goal. While not always listed this way, you may see the phrase “as measured by…” which will clue you into how you need to be measuring the goal. If the goal indicates that it will be measured by “a 9 step task analysis via weekly OT observations” then you know that you are the person to be monitoring the goal, and you need to use the same 9 step task analysis each week. You can set up data sheets like the one above so you have the task analysis handy!
If you have a handwriting goal, what components of legibility are you tracking specifically? Make sure to take note of the level of assistance, frequency of prompts, consistency and accuracy required for mastery, and other specifics as well! Each goal [just like each child] is different!
How do you plan to measure that goal?
Once you know what you are measuring, you need to figure out how you are going to measure it. For example, let’s say the student has a goal to print all uppercase letters with 85% accuracy in overall final legibility given a visual model. You may want to use paper like the gray block paper above to provide a consistent visual model [as is allowed by qualifiers in the goal]. I would attach this paper to my data sheets [or just use it as one!] so that I am comparing apples to apples between work samples. I find [especially with handwriting goals] that knowing what sentences you are going to be using to take data ahead of time is super helpful. You can then count up the characters in the sentence in advance. This makes taking the data easier. I like to have “pangram” sentences [that use at least one of each of the letters of the alphabet in them] on hand [with the number of letters pre-determined] for data collection.
How often do you need to measure the goal?
If the goal indicates that you are to take data weekly, and you have nine weeks in a marking period, then I would create a data sheet with nine rows/boxes. I would also make nine copies of any worksheets [ex: 2 inch simple shapes for cutting, etc.] that I plan to use to measure the goal. Keep all of this in the student’s folder so you have everything you need for progress monitoring right there. I try to write goals so that specific data doesn’t have to be taken every single session. I prefer to focus on underlying skills, problem solving with the team, and play-based activities during most sessions. However, I do recognize that good data is important to track progress and to assess if intervention is effective. No mater how often you take data, try to make it as efficient as possible [for your sake as well as the students’!].
Do I want to track this goal digitally or with paper/pencil?
If you have mastered digital data collection for OT, comment on this blog! I would love to chat with you! I have tried a variety of strategies for using Google Forms or other digital tools to progress monitor, but I just tend to be a paper and pencil kind of girl. Having very quantitative goals, or those that can be tracked with +/- or Y/N data are much easier to track digitally [and in general]. Try a variety of things and see what works best for you with the way your current goals are written. Remember – you can always update goals to reword them in a way that is conducive to your preferred data collection techniques and still accurately represents student progress.
TRY THESE FREE DATA SHEETS TO GET STARTED!
