ABSTRACT
It is a bedrock principle of behavior analysis that it is necessary to “take a
baseline” before any treatment is contemplated. The reasons are not so
obvious to outsiders and the methodology by which it is accomplished is
out of the reach of most other professions. For us, taking a baseline
means many things, including the following: a referral has been made of
a behavior that is problematic; the behavior is observable and has been
operationally defined in some manner that allows quantification; and,
on several occasions, a trained observer has visited the setting where the
behavior occurs and has documented the occurrence and the circum-
stances under which it occurs (this indicates that the referral is legiti-
mate, that the problem is measurable, and that the behavior may or may
not require treatment, depending on what the graphs of the data show).
Behavior analysts don’t work on rumor or hearsay. They want to see the
problem for themselves, to get some sense of the variability from day to
day, to determine if there is any trending, and finally, they want to un-
derstand the circumstances under which the behavior occurs and to get
some sense of the function of the behavior.
