Tools for better practice.
The New ABA resource library is being built for practitioners, parents, and teams who want to bring child-centered, assent-aware practice into daily work. All tools are in development, join the early list to receive updates as they launch.
Goal selection tools
Decision guides for choosing goals that have a clear child-centered reason, improving safety, communication, autonomy, access, comfort, participation, or quality of life.
Coming soonBefore a goal enters the plan, it should answer a basic question: what will this skill make possible for this child?
These tools help practitioners and teams work through that question deliberately, identifying the child-centered reason for each goal, recognizing when a proposed goal may primarily serve adult convenience, and building consensus across clinicians, families, and teams.
What the tools will include
- Goal-decision framework, a structured set of questions to evaluate any proposed goal against child-centered criteria
- Child-centered reason checklist, a quick reference for common goal types and the questions to ask before selecting them
- Goal review protocol, a process for revisiting goals that have been on the plan for a long time or that the child consistently refuses
- Team discussion guide, structured prompts for goal-setting meetings that include multiple perspectives, including the family
What it helps you decide
Is this goal something that will expand what this child can do, their safety, access, communication, or participation? Or is it primarily about making the child easier to manage in a specific context?
Assent & refusal tools
Checklists and examples to help practitioners recognize assent, assent withdrawal, hesitation, refusal, distress, and shutdown, and use these signals to shape what happens next.
Coming soonEvery child communicates assent differently. Part of good clinical practice is understanding what yes looks like for this child, and what no looks like, before the session begins.
These tools support practitioners in identifying, documenting, and responding to assent signals across a range of communication styles, including children who communicate without spoken words.
What the tools will include
- Assent-signal reference sheet, observable examples of assent and assent withdrawal across verbal and nonverbal communication styles
- Individual assent profile template, a fillable document to identify how a specific child communicates yes and no
- Session assent log, a structured way to document assent signals during sessions and note adjustments made
- Refusal and hesitation response guide, a brief decision guide for common responses to assent withdrawal, including when safety considerations apply
What it helps you decide
When a child pulls away, freezes, protests, or shuts down, what is this telling us? What should happen next, and when is it appropriate to adjust, pause, or continue?
Behavior-as-information templates
Worksheets for understanding what a behavior may be communicating, protecting, expressing, or revealing, before selecting an intervention.
Coming soonBehavior is visible. What drives it is often not. These templates help practitioners slow down the move from observation to intervention and ask more complete questions about what a child may be experiencing and communicating.
They are designed to sit alongside, not replace, traditional functional behavior assessment, adding a fuller picture of the child's experience, environment, and communication before treatment decisions are made.
What the tools will include
- Behavior-as-information worksheet, a structured form for exploring what a behavior may be communicating, protecting, or expressing, including environmental and relational contributing factors
- Scene-reframe template, a tool for practicing the "what is this behavior doing for the child?" reframe using specific clinical examples
- The better question guide, prompts for shifting from "how do we stop this?" to "what support would make this less necessary?"
- Environmental factors checklist, a quick scan of the setting, sensory conditions, adult behavior, and task demands that may be contributing to the behavior
What it helps you decide
Before we intervene on a behavior, what do we actually understand about it? What might the child be telling us that we have not yet fully heard?
Data that serves dignity
Measurement tools that capture communication, distress, recovery, autonomy, participation, and quality of life, alongside traditional behavior data.
Coming soonA graph can show an important pattern. It should not be the only story we use to define progress.
These tools help practitioners and teams build data systems that capture more of what matters, including indicators that the child's experience is improving, not only that a target behavior has changed.
What the tools will include
- QoL data framework, a structured approach to selecting and tracking quality-of-life indicators alongside behavior data
- Distress and recovery log, a brief form for documenting the frequency, intensity, and duration of distress, and how quickly the child recovers
- Autonomy and choice tracker, a simple tool for noting how often the child was offered meaningful choices and what they chose
- Progress review questions, a set of prompts for asking what has changed for the child, not only what has changed on the graph
- The cost-of-success checklist, a structured set of questions for evaluating whether a behavior decrease reflects genuine improvement in the child's life
What it helps you decide
Is what we are measuring actually telling us whether the child is doing better, safer, more communicative, more autonomous, more connected? What is the data not yet showing us?
Parent & caregiver guides
Plain-language materials to help families understand what respectful behavioral support looks like, what questions to ask, and how to advocate for goals that improve their child's daily life.
Coming soonParents need support that helps them understand their child more clearly, respond more confidently, and build a home life with less fear, confusion, and conflict.
These resources are not designed to turn parents into technicians. They are designed to help families ask better questions, recognize meaningful progress, and advocate for care that serves their child's actual life.
What the tools will include
- Understanding your child's behavior, a plain-language guide to reading behavior as communication, including common scenarios and what they may mean
- Questions to ask your child's team, a practical reference for understanding goals, methods, and data at your child's next planning meeting
- What to look for in respectful behavioral support, a guide to recognizing practices that support the child's dignity, communication, and autonomy
- Supporting your child at home, practical tools for building predictable routines, communication opportunities, and moments of connection
What it helps you decide
Is your child's support plan focused on things that will genuinely improve your child's safety, communication, and access to life? Are the goals ones your child would recognize as useful?
Team implementation materials
Rubrics, supervision prompts, discussion guides, and training materials for clinics and school-based teams who want to build a shared standard around child-centered behavioral support.
Coming soonIndividual practitioners can shift their practice. Lasting change happens when teams share a language, a standard, and a process for holding each other accountable to it.
These materials help clinics, schools, and interdisciplinary teams build culture and structure around The New ABA's commitments, not as an audit tool, but as a shared foundation for growth.
What the tools will include
- Session quality rubric, a structured observation tool for supervisors and team leaders to assess sessions against child-centered criteria
- Supervision discussion prompts, a set of questions for bringing The New ABA's commitments into regular supervision conversations
- Team standard-setting guide, a facilitation tool for teams who want to align around shared language and practice expectations
- Case review protocol, a structured format for reviewing difficult or uncertain cases through a child-centered lens
- Onboarding materials, brief introductory resources to share with new team members on the clinic's values and practice standards
What it helps you decide
Is the clinical culture on this team one where the child's experience is consistently centered? Where practitioners feel supported in raising concerns, asking questions, and adapting based on what the child is communicating?
Get notified when resources launch.
Join the early list to receive updates as tools, guides, and templates become available, and to help shape what gets built first.