It can be so hard to decide where to start when working with children who have severe communication delays. I recently worked with a child whose delays were so severe that we made a goal that he would be able to use a variety of behaviors that showed any form of interaction. We were in essence tracking his intent to communicate. This was very tricky to keep data for! So, I made a form. I adapted it from one that was circulating in our district. It offers a variety of behaviors that the child might display and then a place to mark what the child's intent was when he/she did that behavior. The behaviors are listed in a hierarchy with the most simple behaviors that may or may not be communication marked "primitive", the very basic forms of communication labeled "conventional", and the relatively more advanced forms of communication labeled "symbolic".

What I love about this form is the ability to quickly track behaviors and their intent with a simple check mark. It also gives me a good reminder that I need to figure out what the child's intent is for each behavior (sometimes I actually write a note of what I'm guessing the child is trying to tell me next to the checked intent).

In the end I am able to....
1. count the number of communicative behaviors
2. see the most common reason for communicative behaviors (to protest, to gain attention, to request...etc)
3. look at all of the behaviors and see if they are mostly primitive, conventional or symbolic.