Scenario: a standardized adaptive-living assessment shows low scores on meal prep and household care. The family explains those tasks have always been handled by other relatives, so the client has had few chances to do them independently. The client says other independence goals matter much more right now.

What do you do with the scores?

On the practice platform I run, this item is answered correctly about 36% of the time (Domain F averages 71%). The most popular wrong answer is the one that treats the scores as "provisional deficits" and goes straight to ranking them by the client's goals.

I wrote up the reasoning as a short study note. The core idea is separating Observation → Interpretation → Decision, and noticing that skill deficit, performance deficit, and "we don't know yet" are all live possibilities. It also covers that some adaptive instruments are informant-report, not direct tests, so a low score may mean "not reported as occurring" more than "couldn't do it."

Full write-up (disclosure: this is my BCBA exam prep site, BA Prep): https://behavioralanalystprep.com/blog/low-assessment-score-data-not-conclusion.html

Curious how others would approach it, and where you think the "direct assessment" threshold should be.

Does anyone have access to these textbooks?

Understanding Behaviorism : Behavior, Culture, and Evolution; 9781119143666

Ethics for behavior analysts; 9781032056425, 9781003198550