Data Logs & Daily Notes

I'm sure if you ask a hundred speech therapists what they do for data and taking notes, you would get a hundred different answers. Everyone takes their daily notes differently and everyone takes data differently. The most important thing, is that you DO! Your lessons and student goals/objectives are driven by the data you take (qualitative and/or quantitative). I wanted to share with you how I keep up with my daily notes and data.





Here's my clipboard with my schedule in a protective sleeve on top; under my schedule are the labels I use for my daily notes. I use these labels because it is easier to keep everything on the clipboard, rather than a binder (plus you don't have to flip back and forth when taking data on multiple students).  You can find a template with these labels here (the labels are 2"x4" shipping labels); Anna also posted about these and you can find her version here.

Each label has a place for the Student's Name (of course), Date, Time that you see the student (important for medicaid billing/auditing), Objective/s that you're working on for that session, and finally, room for your data.

At the end of the day, I simply place the labels on each student's "Lesson Plan/Progress Monitoring" page.

Each student has a page like this; it details the student identification at the top, as well as, how the student's will be monitored, what types of activities there will be and if the student has any accommodations/modifications. Prior to this page, I have the individual student instructional plan page (right off the IEP site - 'cause that's what's easiest and less time consuming). Student's are in alphabetical order and kept in a binder.

This is the easiest and most efficient way for me to collect data during my therapy sessions. In order for me to know what I'm targeting for that session, I use my Lesson Plan binder I spoke about in my post Let's Get Organized!

I hope this helps you in your practice; please feel free to share what you do!!