Demonstration

A demonstration is a decision-making event with one participant identified as the decision-maker who completes the performance measure. While a demonstration can have multiple participants, there must be one participant who is the decision-maker. That is typically an individual with a disability or a parent/guardian when one of those participant types is part of the demonstration. While providers can be the decision-maker who completes the performance measure, those demonstration events require a bit more oversight to ensure fidelity of data and ensure the decision is clearly made on behalf of one individual with a disability who is/will be the AT user.

Red Flag: Total Number of Demonstrations = Total Number of Participants

The likelihood of all demonstrations only having one participant who is the decision-maker for themselves or a specific consumer they represent is rather slim. It is possible that your program decided to only report the decision-maker who attends the demonstration even though others participated. While that can be done at program discretion, it is not exactly aligned with the intent of the APR. Even if this is the reason the number of demonstrations and participants are equal, it is worth a closer data review, especially when the one participant decision-maker is not an individual with a disability or parent/guardian. If there are large numbers of professionals or providers who are the participant decision-maker, you need to make sure this is actually a decision-making demonstration event (e.g., that decision-maker provider is getting guided exploration and feature comparison of devices for the specific purpose of making a decision for one identifiable individual with a disability, not general product information for potential application to clients/students with certain skill deficits in general). A small group or even just one SLP from a school district who explores AAC options for a few of their students is not likely a demonstration event but instead would be a training or public awareness event, because there would need to be separate performance measures collected for each decision for each student.

Red Flag: Total Number of Participants ≥ 4x Total Number of Demonstrations

If the average number of participants per demonstration is four or more, it is very likely that some of these events were training or public awareness instead of demonstration. It would be very unusual for every demonstration to have that many participants. If you review your individual demonstration records and see demonstrations with 10 or more participants, those demonstrations are highly suspect as that large of a group is just not conductive to a quality demonstration event. Not that there cannot be a rare exception, but that should be offset by demonstrations with one, two, or three participants, which is much more typical.

Red Flag: A significant number of individuals with disabilities participants are not reported as the decision-makers

The individual with a disability participant is likely the decision-maker for any demonstration they participate in when there are additional participants reported. If there are a significant number of individuals with disabilities reported as “additional participants” rather than as the decision-maker, that means there were two or more consumers in one demonstration, which is fairly rare. In addition, when an individual with a disability is not the decision-maker, their role in the demonstration might actually be as a family member or advocate rather than as an individual with a disability. Again, there is the odd exception of a married couple, both of whom have disabilities, who are exploring environmental adaptations for their home and are both are participating as individuals with a disability and no other role. But in general, it is helpful to carefully review the individual demonstration records that report multiple individuals with disabilities participating in one demonstration and track down the specifics of how a decision-maker was identified to complete the performance measure.

Last updated January 2023