The Automatic Graphing/Rotation Scan Procedure for Laptops and Cellphones: An Ecological Assessment System for Developing Local Norms

Normative assessments are frequently used to assess children and adults in a multitude of settings. Normative assessments use large samples from a given population from which inferences can be made to individuals who share the characteristics of those in the standardization sample. Ecological assessments employ more direct assessments of behaviors within a particular setting. Normative assessments do not consider setting events or their influence on an individual’s behavior. Functional behavior analysis and rotation scans are forms of ecological assessment that assess setting event variables and their relationship to one or more individuals’ behavior within a particular setting. Unlike conventional normative assessment strategies, ecological assessment systems provide a basis for treatment grounded in the functions of behavior and the influence of setting variables. This paper describes a rotation scan procedure that provides simple and reliable recording and automatic graphing features.