A scoping review of consecutive controlled case series studies
Consecutive controlled case series are piling up fast—mine them for real-world treatment patterns before you reinvent the wheel.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Kaur and her team read every paper that used a consecutive controlled case series (CCCS) design.
They found 76 studies published through 2023.
Most looked back at clinic charts, focused on autism or ID, and asked if challenging-behavior treatments worked across many real clients.
What they found
CCCS is catching on.
About half of the 76 papers came out after 2018.
Median sample was 20 clients.
Almost every study targeted self-injury, aggression, or stereotypy.
How this fits with other research
Weber et al. (2024) is one of the 76 papers.
Their big look-back at 147 functional analyses fits right inside Kaur’s map.
Lambert et al. (2022) also makes the cut; their six-year practicum series shows the same real-world flavor.
Feinstein et al. (1988) is missing from the list—too early—but the idea matches: test one client after another and watch the pattern.
Why it matters
You now have a ready-made bucket of 76 studies to steal from.
Need ideas for tricky cases? Pull the CCCS papers on similar topographies and see what worked in clinic after clinic.
When you write up your own file-review project, call it a CCCS and add to the map.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
We conducted a scoping review on the consecutive controlled case series (CCCS) methodology (Hagopian, 2020). The CCCS is an approach to studying functional relations across a series of consecutive cases that share common features. We identified and reviewed 76 studies that used CCCS methodology. Most of these (a) were retrospective CCCS studies that incorporated most of the CCCS elements that were identified by Hagopian (2020), (b) involved child participants with autism spectrum disorder or an intellectual disability, and (c) evaluated the assessment and treatment of challenging behavior within specialized clinical settings. The sample sizes ranged from 3 to 269 participants, with a median of 20 participants. We discuss current trends, gaps in the literature, and implications for statements of the generality of behavioral procedures.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 2025 · doi:10.1002/jaba.70006