Assessment and Functional Behavior Assessment
Assessment purposes and methods
Assessment answers referral questions: what is the behavior, when does it occur, and why. Indirect methods (interviews, rating scales, questionnaires) are efficient but rely on recall and are less reliable. Direct methods (direct observation, ABC recording, scatterplots) capture behavior as it occurs. Preference assessments identify potential reinforcers: free-operant, paired-stimulus, multiple-stimulus with and without replacement, and single-stimulus. Paired-stimulus tends to be more accurate but slower; multiple-stimulus without replacement is efficient.
Functional behavior assessment
FBA identifies the function of behavior - attention, escape, tangible, or automatic (sensory). Indirect FBA uses interviews and records. Descriptive FBA uses observation and ABC data. Functional analysis (FA) systematically manipulates antecedents and consequences to demonstrate control, using conditions such as attention, escape, alone, and play (control). FA is the most rigorous but can be impractical or risky for severe behavior; brief FA and latency-based FA are alternatives. Traps: treating a descriptive correlation as proof of function, or assuming an FBA is complete without a hypothesis statement.
Worked example
ABC data show aggression occurs mostly when demands are presented and stops when the task is removed. Hypothesis: escape function. Confirm with an FA comparing escape and play conditions. Rule of thumb: descriptive data generate hypotheses; only experimental manipulation confirms function.