If you wish to decrease an unwanted behavior, it is important to know how often that particular behavior is occurring; that way, a teacher can verify whether any behavioral intervention is, in fact, having an effect. For example, Ms. Rollison can’t be sure that Patrick’s outbursts have decreased unless she actually counts how many outbursts he had per day before she started her intervention, and then compares that to the number of outbursts that he has per day after she implements her intervention.