Newsletter > Volume1 > Issue3

Terrance M. Scott, C. Michael Nelson, and Carl J. Liapusin

If asked, we all can stop and think of a handful of students in our schools that have the most seriously challenging behaviors. If we work in the same school, we likely are all thinking of the same students. These children not only take up our time and energy, but often they disrupt their own learning and the learning of others. Obviously, we don't need elaborate screening instruments and expert assessment to find these students after their behavior is out of control; they find us. In addition to this group of easily identifiable students, there are others whose behavior is not yet out of control, but who are already experiencing a level of social and academic failure that could lead them to exhibit challenging behaviors in the future. Unfortunately, attempts to profile or pick these students out before they engage in challenging behavior have been demonstrated to be ineffective. Looking ahead, which of these at-risk students will continue to escalate this pattern of failure and become a member of next year's crop of students whose names pop up when we think of that group of pupils whose behavior presents major challenges? Rather than merely waiting for these students to make themselves apparent, we might make the best use of our time and resources by taking a proactive approach to reducing challenging behaviors and establishing a systematic collaborative process for dealing with early incidents of challenging behavior.

Positive behavior support (PBS) is a school-wide approach to creating instructional and social environments that increase the likelihood that all students will experience success. When we create environments that prevent minor academic and social failure, we also act to prevent the most serious and challenging behaviors. The process of PBS suggests that if we can understand the predictable circumstances in which behaviors typically occur, we can use this information to develop teachable expectation, routines, and physical arrangements that will increase the likelihood that students will experience both academic and behavioral success. Researchers who study school-wide systems of PBS have found that teaching students and rewarding them for complying with expectations and routines, and modifying routines and physical arrangements most commonly associated with student failure produce significant reductions in office disciplinary referrals.

However, even with these systems in place, some students continue to experience failure. Recognizing this, we must be prepared to address the needs of these students (as well as our needs for order, safety, and security), through more individualized and intensive levels of behavioral support. For those students who display persistent challenging behavior, this is accomplished through assessment-based intervention planning; that is, interventions that are based on functional assessment. Below is a brief explanation of functional assessment, how it is connected to PBS, and how it provides a proactive approach to behavioral problem solving. In addition, we describe the value of a collaborative approach to functional assessment and answer some basic questions regarding how such an approach can be systematically developed at the school level.

What is Functional Assessment?

A functional behavior assessment (FBA) is an analysis of the circumstances in the environment (teachers, students, events, directions, etc.) that tend to predict a behavior and help explain why the student engages in that behavior at that particular time. Why a student engages in a behavior is known as its function. Two broad categories explain behavior function: problem behavior can serve to access or get something (attention, power, objects, stimulation, etc.) or to escape or avoid something (attention, embarrassment, hard work, etc.). Once we understand the function of a behavior, we can help the student develop more appropriate ways to meet his or her need. That is, we can teach the student an appropriate strategy for getting attention, escaping embarrassment, avoiding tasks, etc.

How is FBA Connected to Positive Behavior Support?

The overall purpose of PBS is to develop collaborative systems within the school that prevent predictable student failure across all students. Functional behavior assessment is a strategy for identifying those situations that predict individual student failure. The outcome of a functional assessment is an effective intervention plan that prevents failure and facilitates student success. Naturally, this is more effective when done early, before the student has acquired a long history of failure and the challenging behaviors they use to cope with failure. Therefore, we recommend that FBA be used early in a pattern of problem behavior; that is, with students who are exhibiting less serious problem behaviors.
To do this, FBA must be institutionalized as part of a school-wide system of PBS. One way to achieve this goal is to rely on an identified "expert" to conduct FBAs on a regular basis. However, many schools are not likely to have access to an "expert" in FBA until challenging behaviors are proven to be out of control. A more proactive approach is to put in place simple and realistic procedures that allow FBAs to be conducted collaboratively by a broad range of school staff members as part of a systematic school-wide procedure. The key to implementing this collaborative approach is to strike a balance between the most logical method of answering the questions being asked and the procedures that will be implemented with fidelity by the staff involved in conducting the assessment. Generally, the most realistic strategies are those that are less formal and can be implemented by a variety of school personnel within the scope of their normal activities. Collaborative team-based FBA provides such a realistic option.

Performing a Collaborative FBA

When should a collaborative FBA be completed?Although FBA is indicated whenever a student is demonstrating behaviors that inhibit academic or social functioning, the most efficient use is at the time when problems first become apparent. Generally, the more severe the behavior, the more quickly is it recognized. Thus, physically aggressive behaviors may suggest the need for an FBA after very few instances, whereas noises or out-of-seat behaviors may occur over a longer period of time before an FBA would be considered. However, again, intervention is more effective when implemented before problem behavior is allowed to maintain and escalate over time. The more quickly we determine the function of the behavior and develop an effective intervention, the greater the likelihood that we (and the student) will succeed. An intervention based on FBA is more likely to be effective when implemented after one suspension rather than 9, after 3 days of noise making rather than a month, or after 5 office referrals rather than 20. This suggests that with respect to systematic implementation of collaborative team FBA at the school level, effective use of FBA is facilitated when referral to an FBA team occurs when staff first recognize that typical disciplinary procedures are not effective in solving a problem. Who should be involved in the FBA? While conducting multiple direct observations of a student's behavior is a preferred method for conducting FBAs, it is not always the most realistic. To be certain, the challenges that some students present will require such formality and the assistance of specialists to observe the behaviors in question - often a very time-consuming task. However, the staff who regularly work with the student can get together and discuss their interactions with him or her. In doing so, they can reflect on their own repeated direct observations of the student. In this case, discussing a set of questions that are structured to obtain specific information about events that predict the problem behavior may be a realistic method for completing the FBA.

Thus, team members should include all persons who regularly interact with the student, including teachers (home room, librarian, PE, etc.), classified personnel (secretaries, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, etc.), administrators, and the parent(s). The greater the input of information, the clearer picture can be drawn from the set of reported observations.

What is required of the team members?

When team members meet to implement a collaborative FBA there are, several tasks must be accomplished. The outcome of the FBA will be a statement (hypothesis) describing the predictable relationship between the behavior and environmental events surrounding it. This includes information about the conditions (activities, times of day, persons present) in which the behavior is most likely to occur, immediate antecedents to the behavior (e.g., teacher task requests, provocation by other students), and the events that immediately and consistently follow the behavior. This statement leads to a hypothetical explanation of the function of the student's behavior. Understanding the function is only the first step in the process. The real value in conducting an FBA is in using the information to develop an effective function-based intervention plan.

What do we do once we determine the function?

The FBA is used to plan an effective and efficient intervention. The keys is to creating an effective intervention plan are to determine appropriate behaviors to help the student get the same outcomes that occurred when he/she used the problem behavior, and to arrange the environment to make that happen. The student who makes noises to get attention may be taught to raise his hand or use another signal; the student who curses to be removed from the class and avoid embarrassment from oral questions in math may be asked to solve problems at his desk in writing. The student who refuses to work because she likes to hang out and do nothing may be offered an opportunity to earn free time for work completion. In each case, the student engages in an appropriate behavior that serves the same function in meeting his or her needs. Of course, our intervention will be most effective if we create instructional environments that make the appropriate behavior more likely to occur. Strategies for facilitating the creation of successful instructional environments include using clear routines, prompts and cues, seating arrangements, teacher placement, and consistent consequences. The team must determine both the most logical strategies for a particular student and consider which strategies are most realistic.- In other words, which strategies can be implemented consistently across all settings and by all persons who are involved? Finally, the team must determine how they will determine whether the plan has been successful and when they will meet again to evaluate the plan.

When is the whole process done?

The FBA process is not completed until the team meets and determines that the student is meeting the criteria that were set for success. Under any other circumstances, the team must revisit the FBA process from the beginning, using more formalized and time-consuming procedures as needed to get more information about the student's behavior interacts with the environment. The result will be a revised statement of function leading to a revised intervention plan. Over time, plans that continue to be deemed unsuccessful will lead a team to engage in more time-consuming and intense assessment activities that necessarily will involve a wider range of personnel, including experts in fields outside of education and perhaps the school system. However, the more we engage FBA procedures proactively with children exhibiting simple problem behaviors, the fewer students we are likely to identify as needing this most intense level of assessment.

Where can I get more information?

O'Neill, R. E., Horner, R. W., Albin, R. W., Sprague, J. R., Storey, K., & Newton, J. S. (1997). Functional assessment and program development for problem behavior: A practical handbook (2nd ed.). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Scott, T. M., Liaupsin, C., & Nelson, C. M. (2001). Behavior Intervention Planning: Using the Outcomes of Functional Behavioral Assessment. Longmont, CO: Sopris West.