Everyday Teaching Autism Resources

In ABA, ABC data refers to Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence data. It can be one of the most used data collection formats in ABA therapy sessions.

1. Try to determine what is happening in the environment before a target behavior occurs (antecedent)

2. Describe the behavior objectively

3. We also want to know what happens after the behavior occurs (consequence).

It may not give us a definite cause of the behavior, but it helps us determine whether there might be a relationship between the target behavior and what happens before and after the behavior. The more information you have, the easier finding the pattern is.

In the first column (antecedent), record anything that was observed before the behavior occurred. What type of task was asked of the client? Where was it? Were there a lot of people or loud noises? Was the client engaging in his or her preferred activities?

In the middle column (behavior), record the behavior, usually undesirable behavior, in the most objective way. Lastly, record what happened after the behavior occurred. This column would give the most valuable information when determining the possible hypothesis of behavior function.