Performance Problems
Student’s Name
Department Name, University
Course Number: Course Name
Instructor’s Name
Due Date
Performance Problems
Brief Overview
Maria Lopez is an Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) clinic Registered Behavior
Technician (RBT) who provides services to children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in a
community-based setting. The pinpointed performance issue is that Maria is unable to
complete discrete trial training (DTT) data on the session data sheet regularly during therapy
sessions. Specifically, the target behavior deficit is operationally defined as: the number of
trials in which the RBT records a correct (+) or incorrect (−) response on the paper data sheet
within 5 seconds of the client's response, divided by the total number of trials delivered per
session, expressed as a percentage. On average, Maria observed data on 38% of the trials,
which is much lower than the 80% of the trials required by the clinic. The performance issue
seems not to be a lack of skills, because when prompted by her supervisor during role play,
Maria can accurately demonstrate the entire data recording process. Instead, the results of
the assessment show that the lack of structured performance feedback, and the lack of
clarification supports such as reminders or postings in the therapy room are significant
factors contributing to the deficiency.
Performance Diagnostic Checklist – Human Services (PDC-HS)
Employee’s Name (Person Interviewer (Person asking Date: May 16, 2026
Exhibiting Performance the interview questions):
Issue): Maria Lopez, BCBA Supervisor
Registered Behavior
Technician.
Yes N N/A
Training
o
X
1. Has the employee received formal training on this task? If yes, circle
all applicable training methods: ✓ Instructions ✓ Demonstration ✓
Rehearsal
X
2. Can the employee accurately describe the target task and when it
should be performed?
X
3. Is there evidence that the employee has accurately completed the
task in the past?
X
4. If the task needs to be completed quickly, can the employee perform
it at the appropriate speed?
Yes N N/A
Task Clarification & Prompting
o
X
1. Has the employee been informed that he/she is expected to perform
the task?
X
2. Can the employee state the purpose of the task?
X
3. Is a job aid for completing the task visibly located in the task area?
X
4. Is the employee ever verbally, textually, or electronically reminded to
complete the task?
X
5. Is the task being performed in an environment well-suited for task
completion?
Yes N N/A
Resources, Materials, & Processes
o
X
1. Are there sufficient numbers of trained staff available in the
program?
2. If materials (e.g., teaching stimuli, preferred items) are required for X
task
completion, are they readily available (e.g., easy to find, nearby)? If no
materials
are required, proceed to question 5.
List materials below and indicate their availability.
Item 1: Paper data sheets (available on therapy table)
Item 2: Pencil/pen (available at workspace)
Item 3: Session timer/stopwatch (available on phone)
Item 4: Client program binder (kept in therapy room)
X
3. Are the materials necessary to complete the task well designed for
their intended purpose?.
4. Are the materials necessary to complete the task well organized for X
their intended purpose?
5. Can the task be completed without first completing other tasks? If X
not, indicate
below the tasks that must be completed first.
Task 1: N/A Task 2: N/A
Task 3: N/A Task 4: N/A
6. If you answered NO for Question 5, are other employees responsible X
for
completing any of the earlier tasks in the process? If so, indicate the
employee(s)
below.
Task 1: N/A Task 2: N/A
Task 3: N/A Task 4: N/A
Yes N
Performance Consequences, Effort, & Competition
o
1. Is the employee ever directly monitored by a supervisor? If so, X
indicate the frequency of monitoring. Frequency is ■ weekly.
2. Does the employee ever receive feedback about the performance? If X
yes,
indicate below.
By whom? N/A
How often? N/A
Delay from task? N/A
Check all that apply:
Feedback Focus: ¦ Positive ¦ Corrective
Feedback Type: ¦ Written ¦ Verbal ¦ Graphed ¦ Other:
3. Does the employee ever see the effects of accurate task completion? X
If yes,
how?
X
4. Is the task simple or does it involve relatively low response effort?
X
5. Does the task generally take precedence over other potentially
competing tasks? If not, indicate these competing tasks below.
Task 1: Transitioning between DTT trials
Task 2: Delivering prompts
Task 3: managing reinforcement schedules
Task 4: Monitoring and managing client behavior
Identified Domain from PDC-HS
The PDC-HS assessment identified two main domains that contributed to Maria's
data recording deficit. The first, and most noticeable, domain is Performance Consequences,
Effort, and Competition. Maria has no regular, structured feedback regarding how well the
data she records is accurate and consistent (Question 2, No) and she has no opportunity to
see the downstream impact of accurate data on client programming decisions (Question 3,
No). Further, several competing task demands, such as providing prompts, setting
reinforcement schedules, observing client responses, and switching between trials of DTT
routinely take precedence over timely data recording (Question 5, No). The second
contributing domain is Task Clarification and Prompting. While Maria knows the clinic
expects to record data (Question 1, Yes), there does not appear to be a job aid with step-by-
step instructions for data recording, displayed in the therapy room (Question 3, No), and a
systematic reminder system is not in place to cue data recording between trials (Question 4,
No). These results also suggest that an effective program will need to overcome the lack of
task clarification supports in the environment as well as the lack of consistent and structured
performance feedback.
One Strategy to Address
The recommended approach is Behavioral Skills Training (BST) in a caring supervisory
context to the targeted domains of identified PDC-HS. BST is composed of four parts:
instructions, modeling, rehearsal, and immediate feedback (Sherman et al., 2021). The
supervisor would then have a private meeting with Maria to discuss the data recording
expectation and agree that they would aim for 80% accuracy per session. The supervisor
would then model and demonstrate the procedure and Maria would rehearse using
structured role play. For instance, the supervisor would be acting as the client and then give
a correct answer, and Maria would have 5 seconds to mark a (+) on the data sheet.
Immediate feedback from the supervisor might be "That's a great job of recording that trial
immediately; that is the response time we need in sessions. For the Task Clarification
domain, a laminated job aid summarizing the steps for data recording would be placed at
Maria's eye level and a vibrating smart watch to provide a discreet reminder would follow
between trials, as outlined in the BACB Ethics Code (Behavior Analyst Certification Board,
2020) for compassionate supervisory practices.
To meet the Performance Consequences domain, the supervisor would have brief
feedback meetings every week of no more than 10 minutes during which he would look at a
line graph of Maria's percentages for each session, providing positive and corrective
feedback. As shown by Lipschultz et al. (2021), feedback accuracy is an important
determinant of employee performance outcomes, and it is vital that any feedback provided
to Maria is accurate and directly tied to her performance. Bacotti et al. (2021) also
concluded that the timing of feedback is crucial to improving staff behaviour and that a
consistent schedule of feedback should be followed rather than ad hoc or inconsistent. Any
feedback would be stated in an empathetic manner and would recognize that Maria is
working in competition with multiple task demands, that she is trying hard, and that
feedback will be given collaboratively and not punitively, consistent with the BACB Ethics
Code (Behavior Analyst Certification Board, 2020).
References
Bacotti, J. K., Grauerholz-Fisher, E., Morris, S. L., & Vollmer, T. R. (2021). Identifying the
relation between feedback preferences and performance. Journal of Applied
Behavior Analysis, 54(2), 668–683. [Link]
Behavior Analyst Certification Board. (2020). Ethics code for behavior analysts.
[Link]
[Link]
Lipschultz, J. L., Wilder, D. A., Sleiman, A., Cruz, N., Curry, S., & Gravina, N. E. (2021). The
effects of feedback accuracy and trainer rules on performance during an analogue
task. Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 41(3), 215–235.
[Link]
Sherman, J. A., Richardson, J., & Vedora, J. (2021). The use of behavioral skills training to
teach components of direct instruction. Behavior Analysis in Practice, 14(4), 1085–
1091. [Link]