Conducting and Documenting an Initial Behavioral and Skills Assessment

Join the Dojo: https://dojo.masteraba.academy Passed the exam… but still feel unprepared for initial assessments? You’re not the only one. Many new BCBAs leave grad school knowing the concepts but not feeling confident about what to actually do when it’s time to conduct an initial behavioral and skills assessment, organize the data, and turn it into documentation that supports medical necessity and treatment planning. In this CEU course, we walk through the basics of conducting and documenting an initial assessment for insurance-funded ABA services. You’ll learn how to prepare before the appointment, choose assessment methods, collect and analyze meaningful data, prioritize goals, and document your findings in a way that is both thorough and practical. Inside the Dojo, this course is part of a larger system designed to help BCBAs feel more confident in the real work of clinical practice, not just the exam version of it. If you want support with assessments, treatment planning, behavior plans, parent collaboration, and the day-to-day decisions that come with insurance-funded services, that’s exactly what we’re building there. What You’ll Learn: ✓ How to prepare for an initial behavioral and skills assessment ✓ The difference between behavioral and skills assessment components ✓ How to choose between FBA, FA, and practical functional analysis ✓ How to define target behaviors and gather indirect and direct assessment data ✓ How to analyze ABC data and complete problem and competing behavior pathways ✓ How to choose a skills assessment that fits the learner, setting, and funder ✓ How to prioritize meaningful skill acquisition goals ✓ What to include when documenting the assessment and treatment plan Chapters 0:00 Why New BCBAs Often Feel Unprepared 5:02 Preparing Before the Assessment 9:53 Behavioral Assessment Basics 25:00 Analyzing Behavior Data 38:38 Writing the FBA 43:21 The Skills Assessment 51:40 Barriers to Accurate Assessment 1:03:02 Conducting the Direct Assessment 1:11:19 Prioritizing Skill Acquisition Goals 1:13:49 Documenting the Treatment Plan