Using the PDC-HS When a Staff Member Won't Follow Feedback

The PDC-HS, short for the Performance Diagnostic Checklist for Human Services, is an informant functional behavior assessment for persistent staff performance issues. A functional behavior assessment, or FBA, is a structured way to figure out why a behavior keeps happening. The PDC-HS uses that same logic on adults at work. You reach for it when you have told a staff member the same thing five times and the behavior still has not changed. Before you run it on anyone else, you run a common-denominator check on yourself. If the same problem shows up across two or three different staff members, you are the shared variable. That is not a guilt trip. It is a clue. Your feedback is probably the first thing that needs fixing.

The moment you reach for the PDC-HS#

There is a very specific moment this tool is built for. You have given a staff member, like a Registered Behavior Technician (an RBT, the entry-level tech role in ABA) or a fieldwork trainee, the same feedback more than three times. Nothing has changed. You are starting to feel frustrated. You might be telling yourself the person does not care, or that they are being difficult. Pause there. That story is rarely the right one, and it is the moment to switch from giving more feedback to diagnosing why the feedback is not working.

Dr. Tyra Sellers names this moment plainly in the talk.

If you find yourself, and I've been there, I'm guilty of saying, but I've given the person feedback X number of times and still nothing's happening. The first place to try to change something is your feedback because it's not functioning the way it should. From the talk — Dr. Tyra Sellers

That line is the trigger. Three or more repetitions with no change means your feedback is not feedback anymore. It is just talking. The PDC-HS gives you a way out of that loop.

Step one: rule out your own feedback first#

Before you assess the staff member, you assess yourself. This is the ethical order, and it is also the order that protects the relationship. If you skip your own self-check and jump straight to "what is wrong with them," you will damage trust and you will probably miss the real problem anyway.

Here is the self-check. Look at the staff members you supervise. Is the same kind of issue showing up across more than one of them? Late documentation. Missed prompts. Sloppy data. Skipped programs. If two or three different people are running into the same wall, you are the common denominator. The shared variable is your training, your expectations, or your feedback style.

Always start with the source over which you have some control. And the only one is you. Right. And plus, you're the common denominator. So if you look at instances across multiple trainees or supervisees and there are similar issues, like, common denominator. From the talk — Dr. Tyra Sellers

If you find the common-denominator pattern, fix your feedback first. That might mean making it more specific, delivering it closer to the behavior, modeling instead of just describing, or running a quick rehearsal so the person actually practices the new response. Behavioral Skills Training, or BST, is a four-step teaching method: describe, model, rehearse, give feedback. A 60-second BST sequence right after the behavior often does more than five rounds of verbal reminders.

If you ran the self-check, fixed your delivery, and the problem is still showing up on one specific person, now you have earned the right to reach for the PDC-HS.

What the PDC-HS actually is (in one sentence)#

The PDC-HS is a published checklist that walks you through asking the right questions about why a staff behavior is not happening. It was designed for human-service settings, which is where most BCBAs (Board Certified Behavior Analysts, the master's-level clinicians who supervise ABA programs) actually work. You can find the original article online. You print the checklist. You sit with it. You answer the questions about the staff member, the task, and the environment. The output is not a number. The output is a likely function. Function means the reason behind the behavior, not a moral judgment about it.

This is the one-line definition from the talk.

It's basically an informant functional behavior assessment for persistent staff performance issues. And it's bomb. So use it. From the talk — Dr. Tyra Sellers

"Informant" means you, the supervisor, are the one filling it out based on what you have seen. You are not running a controlled experiment on your staff. You are using your direct observation and a structured set of questions to land on a best guess about the cause.

The four categories it assesses#

The PDC-HS organizes its questions into four buckets. Each one points to a different reason a staff member might not be doing the thing you want.

Training. Does the person actually know how to do the task? Have they been shown, not just told? Have they practiced it with you watching, and gotten feedback? A surprising number of "performance" problems are really training problems in disguise. The person was handed a procedure document, told they were good to go, and never actually saw it done.

Task clarification and prompts. Is the expectation crystal clear? Do they know exactly what good performance looks like, including the small parts? Are there reminders in the environment, like a checklist on the clipboard or a visual on the wall, that prompt the behavior at the right moment?

Resources, materials, and processes. Does the person have what they need to do the task? Is the data sheet within reach? Is the schedule realistic? Are they being asked to run a program with materials that are missing or broken? You will find that some "performance issues" are really workflow issues that no amount of feedback will fix.

Performance consequences, effort, and competition. When the person does the right thing, what happens? Does anyone notice? When they do the wrong thing, what happens? Is the wrong way easier than the right way? Is there a competing behavior that pays off faster, like skipping documentation to leave on time?

Each category has specific yes-or-no questions you answer based on what you have actually seen. The pattern of answers points you toward the most likely cause.

How to score it without making the supervisee defensive#

You do not have to fill the PDC-HS out in front of the person, and most of the time you should not. Sit with it on your own first. Walk through each item based on direct observation, not based on what you assume.

If you need information from the staff member, ask in a normal-conversation way. Do not announce that you are running an assessment on them. That language puts people on edge. Instead, ask the kind of questions the checklist is asking, but as if you are problem-solving together.

Try things like: "When you get to the documentation step, what is going on in your day right then?" Or, "When you ran that program last week, did you have everything you needed?" Or, "If you had to explain how you would do this part to a new tech, what would you say?" Those questions feel like a conversation. They also give you the exact information the checklist needs.

The relationship part matters. Sellers frames feedback as something that has to be functional, meaning it has to actually change behavior, and also socially valid, meaning the person you gave it to has to feel okay about how it landed. The PDC-HS only works if the supervisee still trusts you when you are done.

Matching the solution to the function (not the symptom)#

This is the whole point of running the PDC-HS. The symptom is the same in every case: the staff member is not doing the thing. The function, the reason behind it, is different every time. Matching the solution to the function is what makes the difference between five more rounds of useless feedback and one fix that actually sticks.

If the function points to training, the solution is not more feedback. The solution is sitting down and actually teaching the skill, including a model and a rehearsal. If you only told them, you did not train them.

If the function points to task clarification, the solution is a checklist, a written expectation, or a visual prompt in the environment. Not another reminder conversation.

If the function points to resources, the solution is fixing the workflow. Order the materials. Adjust the schedule. Move the data sheet to where it needs to be. The person is not the problem. The setup is.

If the function points to consequences, the solution is changing what happens when the behavior occurs. That might mean catching the person doing it right and naming it specifically. It might mean removing whatever payoff the shortcut behavior has. It almost never means another round of corrective feedback.

This is also why feedback alone, no matter how well-delivered, cannot fix every performance problem. Sellers makes the parallel to reinforcement directly.

Your feedback is not feedback if it didn't produce the change that you were looking for. In the same way, a gummy bear or five dollars is not a reinforcer in and of itself. It's only a reinforcer if it functioned to strengthen that response again in the future. From the talk — Dr. Tyra Sellers

Function is what makes a thing work. The PDC-HS gives you a structured way to find function when feedback by itself has stopped working. That is the whole tool.

Frequently asked questions#

Is the PDC-HS a formal assessment or an informal tool? It is a published, peer-reviewed informant assessment, but you can run it informally on yourself in about fifteen minutes. There is no certification, no scoring software, and no required training to use it. You print the checklist, you answer the questions honestly, and you act on what you find. The formality scales to your situation.

Can I use the PDC-HS on myself? Yes, and you probably should. If you are noticing a personal performance issue, like consistently late notes or skipped supervision meetings, run the four categories on your own behavior. Is it a training gap, a clarity gap, a resource gap, or a consequence gap? The same logic that works on a supervisee works on you.

What if the PDC-HS points to a problem I can't fix (like understaffing)? This happens, and it is worth naming clearly. Sometimes the checklist will show you that the staff member is set up to fail by the environment. The caseload is too high. The schedule has no breaks. The materials budget is not real. When that happens, the solution is not at the staff-member level. It is at the system level. Document what you found, bring it to the person who can change the system, and stop blaming the individual for a problem the setup created.

Want the full BST and feedback toolkit?#

The PDC-HS is one piece of a larger supervisory skill set. If you want to see Dr. Sellers walk through 60-second BST for corrective feedback, the feedback contract she sets up with every new supervisee, and how she handles power-differential conversations, the full talk is on openceu.com. Watch it for one supervision CEU and pull the rest of the framework into your practice.