In memory of Al Phadt, Ph.D.

This article is a reprint of a paper Al and I presented several years ago. It illustrates how the interpretation and visual display of data in their context can facilitate discovery. Al’s integrated approach is a classic example not only for clinical practitioners but also for everyone who needs to turn data into knowledge.

This is an example of how process behavior charts were used to (1) evaluate outcomes; and (2) assist in making clinical decisions in the treatment of severe, potentially life-threatening, self-injurious behavior (viz., self-inflicted wounds to the body caused by head-banging and biting the wrists and fingers). The treatment of Peter, a 25-year-old man with autistic disorder who functions in the severe range of intellectual disability and has been blind since birth, is described from two points of view. First, from the perspective of Dr. Al Pfadt, the behavioral psychologist who constructed and analyzed the charts shown here; then from the perspective of Peter’s parents. The following material was provided by Pfadt and his colleagues at the New York State Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities and is used with the permission of Peter’s parents.

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