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Information
Section: Behavior
Article:
Functional
Behavioral Assessment: Overview for
Parents
Source: Leslie E. Packer, PhD,
2004
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Page 1 of
1
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PREFACE
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When the U.S. federal
law regulating special education was reauthorized
in 1997, it revised the way schools were supposed
to address disability-related problem behaviors.
One of the new requirements was that school
districts conduct a "Functional Behavioral
Assessment" (FBA) to look at the relationship
between behaviors that interfere with the child's
ability to learn and to then develop a plan that
incorporated both positive behavioral interventions
and supports. The purpose of this overview is to
provide parents with some sense of what an FBA
really is and its value in planning for their child
and in developing interventions for their
child.
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LET'S START WITH THE ABC'S
OF BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS
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Long before the
federal regulations were changed, behaviorists were
using applied behavioral analysis to study behavior
and to develop and assess behavior interventions.
In its most basic form, we talk about the "ABCs" of
behavior analysis, where the acronym "ABC" stands
for "Antecedent, Behavior, Consequences." Behavior
analysts look at what was going on before the
behavior occurred (the antecedent conditions), what
the behavior looked like (including its form and
how long it lasted), and what happened after the
behavior occurred (the responses of those in the
environment, any consequences,
etc.).
As with many things,
conducting an ABC analysis of behavior may sound
simple but be complex to do well. Those who are not
trained in the field often do not know what is
important to record about the antecedent conditions
and may characterize behavior instead of describing
it objectively. As we will see, the same problems
may occur in an FBA.
If an ABC analysis is
done correctly, with enough observations over days,
you should get some sense of what conditions lead
to or are correlated with the occurrence of the
behavior and what consequences might be maintaining
the behavior. Those hypotheses will lead to
possible interventions.
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FBA:
GOING BEYOND THE ABC'S
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Functional behavioral
assessment goes beyond an ABC analysis of behavior.
It is a multidisciplinary approach that
incorporates a number of techniques, sources of
information, and strategies to understand the
causes of problem behavior and to develop
strategies or interventions to address the problem
behaviors. Unlike an ABC analysis that looks at
immediate (or relatively immediate) antecedent
conditions, an FBA also includes biological
factors, social factors, emotional factors, and
environmental factors that contribute to
triggering, causing, maintaining, or ending the
behavior.
Perhaps a simpler way
to describe an FBA is to say that it is an approach
oriented to understanding what function the
behavior or symptom serves for the student so that
it can be addressed. Both an ABA analysis and an
FBA share certain requirements, not the least of
which is that those involved start by providing a
concrete objective definition of the problem
behavior. For example, to say that Joey is
"noncooperative" is somewhat subjective. To say
that "When asked to take his seat and start
working, Joey does not comply with those
directions" gives us a clearer
sense.
What sources of
information does an FBA include to lead to some
hypothesis about the function of a particular
behavior? There is no hard and fast
rule, but let's start by considering what type of
information we need and then we can think about how
to obtain the answers to these
questions:
- Does the
behavior occur in all settings or just
some?
- Does the
behavior occur frequently or
infrequently?
- Does the
student have the necessary skills to engage
in the desired behavior or is there a skills
deficit that needs to be
addressed?
- Does the
student understand the expectations for
behavior?
- What is the
"payoff" is for the behavior -- e.g., does
the student get to avoid some unpleasant
activity or get to escape some
setting?
- Does the
student have the ability to control the
behavior or will she need some supports to
control it?
- If the student
does have the skills to perform the desired
behavior, does the student have the
motivation to perform it?
To answer the above
questions, the school team will generally need to
employ a variety of techniques. An FBA should
not be based on one person's report or
observations. It really requires multiple
participants and techniques. When it comes to
techniques, in addition to direct assessment of the
student and recording of behavior ABC-style, the
team will probably also use:
- Structured or
semi-structured interviews with the student
(if appropriate), the student's parents, and
school personnel involved with the
student
- Scatterplots
or matrices tailored to the student that plot
the relationship between instructional
variables and student behavior over time and
situations
By the end of the
data collection process, the team should have
sufficient quantitative data on the behavior and
qualitative data to develop some guess or
hypothesis about what function(s) the behavior
serves for the student. It is these hypotheses that
will lead to the intervention. There is an
important point to be emphasized here: an FBA does
not lead to a definite answer or "proof" of
anything about the behavior. It leads to an
"educated guess" which will then be tested or
explored.
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THE BEHAVIOR INTERVENTION PLAN
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In light of the data
collected and the team's hypothesis about the
function(s) the behavior serves, the team then
develops a behavior intervention plan (BIP) that
incorporates positive strategies, curricular or
environmental modifications, and supplementary aids
and supports. This means that if skills are
deficient, the intervention might include skills
training, whereas if skills are adequate but
performance is inconsistent, the intervention might
include positive strategies oriented to enhancing
the student's motivation to perform the desired
behavior. If the FBA indicates that a learning
disability is the antecedent for undesirable
behavior, then curricular and instructional
interventions may be planned, in combination with
teaching the student alternative ways to
communicate frustration or deal with the situation.
Support from peers, school personnel, and the
classroom teacher may also be incorporated, such as
providing peer education, teaching peers to ignore
the problem behavior, having the teacher privately
cue the student when he's about to get into
trouble, etc.
Although the
frequency and nature of monitoring of the plan is
not clearly defined in the federal regulations, it
makes good sense to monitor the plan to see if it's
being implemented as designed and if it's working.
If it's not working after a reasonable amount of
time, the team should reassess the
situation.
The preceding was
just a brief overview to familiarize parents with
the logic of what is supposed to happen if their
child engages in behavior that seriously interferes
with their ability to learn or others' ability to
learn. A number of resources provide more detailed
explanations of how to conduct an FBA. Links to
some of these resources is provided on the
companion web site for educators, www.schoolbehavior.com.
Theory aside, in
actual practice, schools often fail to conduct an
adequate initial assessment or seem to leap to an
often-faulty hypothesis that the behavior is
"attention-seeking" because they realize that
whenever the student engages in the problem
behavior, the teacher reacts. The teacher's
reaction may or may not be maintaining the
behavior, but in any event, it does not follow
logically that the primary function of the behavior
was attention-seeking. By using multiple types of
assessment and multiple sources of information, the
team is more likely to develop a better hypothesis
as to what function(s) the behavior
serves.
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Information
Section: Behavior
Article:
Functional
Behavioral Assessment: Overview for
Parents
Source: Leslie E. Packer, PhD,
2004
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Page 1 of
1
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Tourette
Syndrome "Plus" © Copyright 1998 - 2005 Leslie
E. Packer, PhD. except as noted.
All rights reserved
This page last updated January 7, 2005.
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