A comparison of electronic to traditional pen-and-paper data collection in discrete trial training for children with autism

There is considerable empirical evidence that demonstrates that early intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) produces substantial improvements in young children with autism. A central feature of this treatment approach is the reliance on continuous measurement of child performance during all treatment hours (20–40 h per week) to ensure an objective and quantitative analysis of behavior. Pen-and-paper data collection is standard practice in service delivery agencies. An alternative is to collect data via an electronic format, however little research has been done on electronic data collection in these settings. The purpose of this study was to compare mTrial®, a program that allows therapists to record, store, and report discrete trial and other behavior data for students on a personal data assistant, to traditional pen-and-paper data, in terms of the accuracy of data collected and the time required to do it. Results suggest that both formats are of approximately equal accuracy but that traditional data collection is faster. Implications of the two data collection methods for data storage and analysis are also discussed.