Assessment & Research

The BEHAVE application as a tool to monitor inclusive interventions for subjects with neurodevelopmental disorders.

Merlo et al. (2023) · Frontiers in Psychology 2023
★ The Verdict

BEHAVE lets the whole team watch mand data grow in real time, so you can fix programs fast instead of next week.

✓ Read this if BCBAs running inclusive preschool programs with minimally verbal children.
✗ Skip if Clinicians who only work in center-based clinics without home or school overlap.

01Research in Context

01

What this study did

Two preschoolers with severe language delays joined a regular class. The team used the free BEHAVE web app to track every mand trial live. Parents and teachers could see the graph on their phones and add notes after each session.

02

What they found

Both children asked for items more often at school and at home. The gains showed up on the app graph right away. Parents said they felt part of the team because they could watch progress each night.

03

How this fits with other research

Bart et al. (2010) gave us the paper PSQ form for parents. BEHAVE moves the same idea onto a phone and updates the graph instantly.

Ramos (2025) created MIEBL software to pick mastery criteria for DTT. BEHAVE adds live data collection across home and school, not just the clinic.

Herrero-Martín et al. (2024) also ran case studies in inclusive preschool rooms. They used robot profiles to boost engagement, while BEHAVE used mand training and shared graphs.

04

Why it matters

You no longer need to wait until Friday to see if the mand program is working. Open BEHAVE on your tablet, tap each trial, and the whole team sees the curve. If the line is flat on Monday, you can change the prompt level before snack time.

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→ Action — try this Monday

Start a BEHAVE account, add one child’s mand program, and invite the parent to view the live graph.

02At a glance

Intervention
functional communication training
Design
case study
Sample size
2
Population
developmental delay
Finding
positive

03Original abstract

In the last few years, many educational and therapeutic interventions for young people with neurodevelopmental disorders are based on systematic monitoring of the outcomes. These interventions are typically conducted using single-case experimental designs, (SCEDs) a set of methods aimed at testing the effect of an intervention on a single subject or a small number of subjects. In SCEDs, an effective process of decision-making needs accurate, precise, and reliable data but also that caregivers and health professionals can gather information with minimal effort. The use of Information Communication Technologies in SCEDs can support the process of data collection and analysis, facilitating the collection of accurate and reliable data, providing reports accessible also by non-experts, and promoting interactions and sharing among clinicians, educators, and caregivers. The present paper introduces the BEHAVE application, a web-based highly customizable application, designed to implement SCEDs, supporting both data collection and automatic analysis of the datasets. Moreover, the paper will describe two case studies of kindergarten children with neurodevelopmental disorders, highlighting how the BEHAVE application supported the entire process, from data collection in multiple contexts to decision-making based on the analysis provided by the system. In particular, the paper describes the case studies of Carlo and Dario, two children with severe language and communication impairments, and the inclusive education interventions carried out to maximize their participation in a typical home and school setting increasing their mand repertoire. Results revealed an increase in the mand repertoire in both children who become able to generalize the outcomes to multiple life contexts. The active participation of the caregivers played a crucial role in the ability of children to use the learned skills in settings different from the ones they were learned in.

Frontiers in Psychology, 2023 · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.943370