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Functional assessment of behavior provides hypotheses about the relationships between specific environmental events and behaviors. Decades of research has established that both desirable and undesirable behaviors are learned through interactions with the social and physical environment. FBA is used to identify the type and source of reinforcement for challenging behaviors as the basis for intervention efforts designed to decrease the occurrence of these behaviors.

Functions of behavior

The function of a behavior can be thought of as the purpose a behavior serves for a person.

All behaviors serve a purpose. All behavior is communication.

Problem behaviors can serve the following functions for an individual:

Medical

       e.g., toothache, stomach pain, fever

Access to attention

       e.g., Child throws toy in order to get mom's attention. (If this maladaptive behavior results in mom looking at child and
       giving him lots of attention—even if she's saying "NO"—he will be more likely to engage in the same behavior in the
       future to get mom's attention)

Access to escape

       e.g., Mom tells the child "Go clean up" and child runs to the kitchen because s/he does not want to complete the task.

Access to automatic reinforcement

       e.g., Child flaps (or, Stereotypic, repetitive movement) in order to release feelings (excitement, frustration, etc.).

Access to tangibles (e.g., activities, toys, edibles, etc.)

       e.g., Child hits mom because s/he wants the toy mom is holding.

Sensory input

       e.g., Child crashes into furniture or pushes people to gain sensory input

Setting Event

       e.g., Environmental or personal factors such as large classroom, didn’t sleep night before, loud noises.

These can be remembered by the acronym SMEATARS.

We can describe behaviors in various ways such as tantrums, noncompliance, inattention, aggression, etc., however all behavior can be classified as serving one or more of the functions above.

Function is identified in an FBA by identifying the type and source of reinforcement for the behavior of interest. Those reinforcers might be positive or negative social reinforcers provided by someone who interacts with the person, or automatic reinforcers produced directly by the behavior itself.^[1]

• Positive reinforcement – social positive reinforcement (attention), tangible reinforcement, and automatic positive reinforcement.^[1]
• Negative reinforcement – social negative reinforcement (escape), automatic negative reinforcement.^[2]

Function versus topography

Behaviors may look different but can serve the same function and likewise behavior that looks the same may serve multiple functions. What the behavior looks like often reveals little useful information about the conditions that account for it. However, identifying the conditions that account for a behavior, suggests what conditions need to be altered to change the behavior. Therefore, assessment of function of a behavior can yield useful information with respect to intervention strategies that are likely to be effective.^[2]

FBA methods

FBA methods can be classified into three types:

• Functional (experimental) analysis
• Descriptive assessment
• Indirect assessment

Functional (experimental) analysis

A functional analysis is one in which antecedents and consequences are manipulated to indicate their separate effects on the behavior of interest. This type of arrangement is often called synthetic because they are not conducted in a naturally occurring context. However, research is indicating that functional analysis done in a natural environment will yield similar or better results.^[3]

A standard functional analysis normally has four conditions (three test conditions and one control):

• Contingent attention
• Contingent escape
• Alone
• Control condition

While the above four conditions are the most widely used functional analysis experimental conditions, using the basic methodology of functional analysis (and experimental analysis in general) it is possible to arrange any combination of antecedents and consequences for behavior to determine what effect, if any, they have on a behavior.

• Advantages – it has the ability to yield a clear demonstration of the variable(s) that relate to the occurrence of a problem behavior. It serves as the standard of scientific evidence by which other assessment alternatives are evaluated. It represents the method most often used in research on the assessment and treatment of problem behavior.^[4]
• Limitations – assessment process may temporarily strengthen or increase the undesirable behavior to gravely unacceptable levels or result in the behavior acquiring new unpleasant functions. Some behaviors may neither be amenable to functional analyses (e.g., those that, albeit serious, occur infrequently). Functional analyses conducted in contrived settings may not detect the variable that accounts for the occurrence in the natural environment.

Descriptive FBA

As with functional analysis, descriptive functional behavior assessment utilizes direct observation of behavior; unlike functional analysis, however, observations are made under naturally occurring conditions. Therefore, descriptive assessments involve observation of the problem behavior in relation to events that are not arranged in a systematic manner.^[5]

There are three variations of descriptive assessment:

• ABC (antecedent–behavior–consequence) continuous recording – observer records occurrences of targeted behavior and selected environmental events in the natural routine.
• ABC narrative recording – data are collected only when behaviors of interest are observed, and the recording encompasses any events that immediately precede and follow the target behavior.
• Scatterplots – a procedure for recording the extent to which a target behavior occurs more often at particular times than others.^[6][7]

Indirect FBA

This method uses structured interviews, checklists, rating scales, or questionnaires to obtain information from persons who are familiar with the person exhibiting the behavior to identify possible conditions or events in the natural environment that correlate with the problem behavior. They are called “indirect” because they do not involve direct observation of the behavior, but rather solicit information based on others’ recollections of the behavior.^[5]

• Advantages – some can provide a useful source of information in guiding subsequent, more objective assessments, and contribute to the development of hypotheses about variables that might occasion or maintain the behaviors of concern.
• Limitations – informants may not have accurate and unbiased recall of behavior and the conditions under which it occurred.

Conducting an FBA

Provided the strengths and limitations of the different FBA procedures, FBA can best be viewed as a four-step process:^[8]

1. The gathering of information via indirect and descriptive assessment.
2. Interpretation of information from indirect and descriptive assessment and formulation of a hypothesis about the purpose of problem behavior.
3. Testing of a hypothesis using a functional analysis.
4. Developing intervention options based on the function of problem behavior.

References