Troup County School SystemPsychological Services

Department

Functional Behavior Assessment

The General Process

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

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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

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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

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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 onlyonly 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 anyany 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.