Wearable Technology to Measure the Occurrence of Self-Injury During a Functional Analysis.

Neely et al. (2025) taped a small wrist accelerometer to kids with autism. The device counted sudden arm jerks during a regular functional analysis.

They later watched the same sessions on video. The goal was to see if the gadget matched what human eyes called self-hitting.

The paper only says the pilot ran; it does not report how well the sensor agreed with the video. We know the setup is possible, but not if it is accurate.

McCabe et al. (2023) tried heart-rate watches during FAs and found no useful signal. Leslie swaps the sensor type, moving from heart rate to motion, after that dead end.

van Swieten et al. (2025) reviewed every biosignal study for self-harm and also concluded no single body measure works yet. Leslie’s pilot is therefore another small entry in a still-empty toolbox.

Sullivan et al. (2026) took the opposite angle: they put wearables on therapists, not clients, to catch staff stress. Together these papers show the field is hunting for any objective ring, watch, or band that can live inside an FA session.

You can’t fix what you can’t count. If a cheap wristband can reliably flag self-hits, you could run FAs in classrooms or homes without a camera crew. Until agreement data arrive, keep your video camera rolling and treat wearables as a backup scorer, not the main one.