Tracking Progress

Dear Parents and Practitioners,

I am sharing with you two MS Excel spreadsheets: (1) an example of how I chart my son’s progress (Click here to view), and (2) a mostly blank spreadsheet to insert specific treatments and to track daily reactions to those treatments for your child (Click here to view). [To download these files, simply 'right click' on the link and then select 'Save Target As.']

THE TOP SECTION contains the dietary and biomedical treatments that I was analyzing closely during that span of time. THE BOTTOM SECTION holds the rating scale of behavioral, attention, demeanor, fine motor skills, etc… that are important indicators of my son’s progress or regression. The ratings indicate poor results in red (1's and 2's), moderate results in yellow (3's), and improved results in green (4’s and 5’s).

Some helpful hints to make you’re tracking more successful.

Take five minutes everyday to update your sheet. This keeps the information fresh and true to the day.
Include one line items under treatments for environmental factors. This can include anything from school vacation, the weekend, installing new carpet, recording a cold, etc… These factors become very helpful for analyzing treatments as well as outside influences you may have forgotten.
Modify the results section to correlate to your child’s “hot spots.”
Make a daily tracking sheet for other people who spend the day with your child. This will help you glean an accurate picture of their daily progress. This will also provide you with unbiased data from others (especially others that don’t know the treatments you are doing).

Below is an example of the form I use:

Eye contact	Very Poor	Poor	Some	Good	Excellent
Fine motor skills, (pressure in writing, creativity in drawing, length of time sitting to complete or create something)	Very poor	poor	average	good	Excellent
Regulation (impulse control, Hyper or calm and focus, or to calm and zoning out, jerky or fluid body movements)	Very Poor	Poor	Average	Good	Excellent
attention	Very Poor	Poor	Some	Good	Excellent
Social communication Self initiated	Poor	Some	average	Good	Excellent
Social communication Responses to others	Poor	Some	average	Good	Excellent

Today’s Date: _____________

Comments:

I have found that this method allows me to adjust one treatment at a time without rushing into different things. It also lets me see subtle differences over a relatively long period of time and helps me go back and ask: “When did I see that behavior last?”

Good luck and I hope you find it helpful!

Brenda Kerr
Brenmike37@aol.com