1. Functional
Behavior
Assessment in the
Education Setting
Sarah Niehoff
Clinical Supervisor
CARD, Bangkok
CENTER FOR AUTISM AND RELATED DISORDERS, Inc.

2. What is behavior?
• Anything an organism does
Can be good or bad
¡ Examples:
¡
–
–
–
–
–
–
Breathing
Eating
Crying
Writing Name
Playing with friends
Hitting

3. Terminology
• Topography = form = physical characteristics of
the object or behavior = what things look, sound,
smell, ….like.
• Function = maintaining consequences =
characteristics of the interaction between the
behavior and the environment = why do we do
what we do = cause of behavior

4. Terminology
Screaming refers to:
Topography
or
Function

5. Terminology
Screaming to get out of a task refers to:
Topography
or
Function

6. Common Types of
Inappropriate Behaviors
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Physical aggression (hitting, biting, throwing things, etc)
Self-Injurious behaviors (banging head, biting self, etc)
Screaming, verbal interruptions (self talk, profanity,
abusive language, etc)
Non-compliance (refusing to respond or refusing
requests)
Eloping (getting up and leaving, etc)
Stereotypy or “Self-Stimulatory”
¡
Verbal, physical, visual
Culturally inappropriate behavior ranging from violating
personal space to public sexual behavior
Spitting
Pica

7. Why do we care about the
function of behaviors?
• Failure to base the intervention on the specific
cause (function) very often results in ineffective
and unnecessarily restrictive procedures.
• For example, consider the child who has learned
that screaming is an effective way of avoiding or
escaping unpleasant tasks. Using timeout in this
situation would provide the child with exactly
what he wants (escaping the task) and is likely to
make the problem worse, not better.

8. How does a behavior occur?
A-B-C
Antecedent (undesired task e.g. worksheet)
Behavior (scream)
Consequences
(removal from class)

9. Variables Controlling Behavior
• Internal
Antecedents
¡ Consequences
¡
• External (others control)
Antecedents
¡ Consequences
¡

10. Non-Social Variables
Internal Antecedents
• Pain
• Fatigue
• Hunger
• Allergies
• Medication
• Room Temperature
• Lighting
• Sensory Needs
• Environmental Agents
(i.e. sugar, etc..)
Internal Consequences
• Self Delivery of
Reinforcer
¡
¡
•
Tangible
Sensory
Self Removal of Aversive
Stimulus, Condition, or
Event

11. Behavior Maintained by
Automatic Reinforcement
• No auditory
Stimulation
• Verbal Stereotypy
• Audio
Stimulation

12. Social Variables
Eternal Antecedents
• Noise/Crowding
• Difficult task
• Low reinforcement given in the
environment
• Teacher’s response to
behavior is conditioned in the
student
• Disrupted routine
• Aversive prompts
• Lacks verbal skills to ask for
reinforcers
• Lacks verbal skills to refuse
requests/demands
External Consequences
• A person delivers a reinforcer
• A person removes an aversive
stimulus, event, or condition

13. Behavior Maintained by
Socially Mediated Reinforcers
Positive Reinforcement
• No attention
• Verbal Stereotypy
• Hears teachers
exasperated
Voice
Escape
• Is asked to
clean up
• Verbal Stereotypy
• Is not asked
to clean up

14. Behavior Escalation
• Verbal Behavior
Appropriate verbalizations
¡ Whining
¡ Verbal aggression
¡
• Physical Behavior
Ignoring
¡ Eloping
¡ Physical Aggression (self and others)
¡
• Verbal and Physical Behavior
Tantrum
¡ Verbal and Physical Aggression
¡

15. What Do You Need to
Address a Behavior?
Step 1- Define the behavior
• Provide an operational definition of the behavior
Develop an objective, detailed, and behaviorally
specific definition or description of the behavior(s)
¡ The definition includes a description of the duration,
and intensity, topography of the behavior(s) of the
inappropriate behavior(s) as well as of the alternate or
incompatible behavior(s).
¡

16. What Do You Need to
Address a Behavior?
Step 2- Collect Data
• Data collection
¡ The
scope and comprehensiveness of data
collection is tailored to the individual student
and to the particular behavior(s) of concern
¡ Ideally, the information is collected from multiple
settings; i.e. different classroom, play yard, etc.
¡ Do not collect extended baseline data

17. Function of the behavior
Step 3- Determine the function
• Before we decide WHAT to do to decrease a
problem behavior we first must know WHY it’s
occurring.
1. Escape
2. Attention (from teachers, staff, students)
3. Tangible (to get something)
4. Automatic (just feels good)
• And sometimes when you are lucky, it’s might be more than one of the
above.

18. Functional Behavior Assessment
• A systematic method use to determine the
underlying function or purpose of a behavior, so
an effective intervention can be developed.
• 3 types
Direct assessment
¡ Indirect Assessment
¡ Experimental Analysis
¡

19. Direct FBA
• Collecting data in the environments in which the
problem behavior occurs.
• ABC data is collected on a specific behavior
• Tally function of Antecedent and Consequence

20. Direct FBA

21. Experimental Functional Analysis
• Gold standard in research
• Manipulate antecedents and consequences to
determine the function
• More difficult to do in the school setting
• Time consuming
• Needs to be done by a trained professional

22. Indirect FBA
• An assessment process to determine the
function of a behavior based on interviewing
people who know the child (i.e.-teacher, parent,
nanny, aide)
Child actually is not involved
¡ Quick – when you need a plan now
¡ Great for low frequency behaviors
¡ Can interview multiple people
¡ No extra data collection throughout the day
¡

23. Questions to ask…
#1
• Does the behavior occur following
a request to perform a difficult
task?
AUTOMATIC
ATTENTION
ESCAPE
TANGIBLE

24. Questions to ask…
#2
• Does the behavior seem to occur
in response to your talking to
other persons in the room?
AUTOMATIC
ATTENTION
ESCAPE
TANGIBLE

25. Questions to ask…
#3
• Does the behavior occur to get a
toy, food, activity that Tim has
been told he can’t have?
AUTOMATIC
ATTENTION
ESCAPE
TANGIBLE

26. Questions to ask…
#4
• Does the behavior occur
repeatedly, in the same way, for
longer periods of time if no one is
around (e.g., 1 hour of rocking)
AUTOMATIC
ATTENTION
ESCAPE
TANGIBLE

27. Questions to ask…
#5
• Does the behavior occur when you make any
request of Tim?
AUTOMATIC
ATTENTION
ESCAPE
TANGIBLE

28. Questions to ask…
#6
• Does the behavior occur when you take away a
food, toy, or activity?
AUTOMATIC
ATTENTION
ESCAPE
TANGIBLE

29. Questions to ask…
#7
• Does the behavior occur once you stop
attending to Tim?
AUTOMATIC
ATTENTION
ESCAPE
TANGIBLE

30. Questions to ask…
#8
• Does Tim seem to enjoy doing the behavior?
AUTOMATIC
ATTENTION
ESCAPE
TANGIBLE

31. Questions to ask…
#9
• Does Tim tries to upset or annoy you when you
are no paying attention to him?
AUTOMATIC
ATTENTION
ESCAPE
TANGIBLE

32. Questions to ask…
#10
• Does the behavior stop occurring shortly after
you give the toy, food or activity that Tim
requested?
AUTOMATIC
ATTENTION
ESCAPE
TANGIBLE

33. Questions to ask…
#11
• When the behavior is occurring does Tim seems
unaware of what is going on around him?
AUTOMATIC
ATTENTION
ESCAPE
TANGIBLE

34. Questions to ask…
#12
• Does it seem that Tim does the behavior to get
you to spend more time with him?
AUTOMATIC
ATTENTION
ESCAPE
TANGIBLE

35. Questions to ask…
#13
• Does the behavior occur when Tim has been
told that he can not do something he wanted to
do?
AUTOMATIC
ATTENTION
ESCAPE
TANGIBLE

36. So which type of FBA do I use?
• When compared sometimes conflicting results
Indirect – best
¡ Direct- also good
¡

37. What next?
• Now that you know the function of a behaviormake a plan to decrease or eliminate the
problem behavior
Antecedent Modifications
¡ Replacement Behaviors
¡ Consequences
¡