Functional Behavior Assessment The General Process Troup County

Functional Behavior Assessment The General Process Troup County School System Psychological Services Department

General Process for Conducting an FBA • Phase 1: Identification and description of interfering behavior • Phase 2: Measuring interfering behaviors • Phase 3: Identifying contributing antecedent, individual and consequence variables

General Process for Conducting an FBA (continued) • Phase 4: How the FBA contributes to developing a positive support plan • Phase 5: Treatment validity --Implementing and evaluating the effectiveness of the positive behavior support plan

Phase 1: Identification and description of interfering behavior • Assessment methods – Interviews, record reviews, direct observations • Clearly define each behavior – stranger test • Team should agree on definitions • Examples – Aggression = hitting, kicking, pinching other – Oppositional = not complying with teacher requests, not following classroom rules <return>

Phase 2: Measuring interfering behaviors • Assessment methods: – Direct observations & recording of interfering behaviors • Guiding questions: – To what degree does the behavior interfere with the student’s academic and/or social functioning? – What is the relative intensity of the behavior? – How often does the behavior occur? • Report “rate” data – Example: # occurrences per school day – Include length of observation per day <return>

Phase 3: Identifying contributing antecedent, individual and consequence variables • Identify and describe the variables that influence the onset of the interfering behavior (i. e. , antecedents) • Identify variables that reinforce the occurrence of interfering behavior (i. e. , consequences) • 3 categories of consequences – Positive Reinforcement – Negative Reinforcement – Automatic Reinforcement

Phase 4: How the FBA contributes to developing a positive support plan • Identify antecedent variable => modify variable to reduce the occurrence of identified behavior • Identify individual variables => select logically and socially valid replacement behaviors for student • Identify consequence variables => determine how to avoid reinforcing the interfering behavior and how to reinforce the replacement behavior <return>

Phase 5: Treatment validity --- Implementing and evaluating the effectiveness of the positive behavior support plan • Ultimately, the positive behavior support plan should be implemented in order to determine the validity of the FBA!

Typical Errors Committed During FBA • Recency error of perception – Generalization of variables present at the most recent presentation of the interfering behavior • Primacy error of perception – Generalization of variables present at the first presentation of the interfering behavior • Error of misplaced precision – Occurs when only the frequency of interfering behaviors are recorded and contextual factors are ignored

Typical Errors Committed During FBA (continued) • Error of inaccurate FBA – Incomplete or inadequate FBAs w/ faulty hypotheses • Error of association – Occurs when interviewees assume any present variables are related to the interfering behaviors

Reference • Steege, M. W. & Watson, T. S. Best Practices in Functional Behavioral Assessment. Chapter 19 in Best Practices in School Psychology. Vol 2. NASP. Bethsaida, MD.