Purpose
The Assessment Project is designed to provide students with experience in a) selecting and conducting direct and indirect assessment for various purposes, b) analyzing and interpreting assessment results to develop individualized intervention programs for home, school, or community settings, and c) writing reports and designing visual data displays to convey results of assessment to readers ranging in experience and expertise.
Activity Details
In this module, you will begin Part 3 of the Assessment Project.
Part 3: Conduct a Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA)
[BACB Task List BACB Task List (5th edition) content areas F1-F3, F6-F9]
- Students will select a learner for this project and obtain requisite permissions (participant, parent/guardian, employer as applicable) to conduct a functional behavioral assessment (FBA) for one challenging behavior exhibited by the learner.
- Complete an intake interview with parent/caregiver and/or staff using the Functional Assessment Screening Tool (FAST) and score according to the instructions on the document.
- Operationalize the challenging behavior to be targeted for assessment based on the FAST interview.
- Complete an ABC data sheet for a minimum of 5 separate incidences of the target challenging behavior. May be either Continuous Recording (time limited) or a Narrative Recording (per episode) ABC (student choice).
- Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence (ABC) Data Analysis
- Clearly and objectively describe the maintaining contingencies for the target behavior.
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- Were any MOs and/or setting events identified?
- Identify the most common/likely antecedent stimulus.
- Identify the most common consequence(s).
- Following which consequences did the learner’s behavior stop, continue or escalate?
- Based on responses to the above questions, what do you believe is the most likely function of the challenging behavior (hypothesis)?
- What is the basis for your hypothesis? Please refer only to the data collected on your ABC chart; discuss setting events/MOs, antecedents, consequences, and the learner’s response to consequences.
- Do not base your hypothesis on the behavior.
- Describe an FA Procedure
- Clearly describe how you would set up a functional analysis (FA) to test your hypothesis (must include details for 4 functional analysis probes).
- Describe the environment, including activities and materials to be used.
- Describe the antecedent for each probe.
- Describe the consequence to be applied following instances of the challenging behavior for each probe.
- Detail the data collection procedure to be used for each of the probes and collect hypothetical data to indicate your hypothesis was correct.
- Graph the FA data.
Written Reports
- For each assessment, write a written summary including:
- Learner information (do not use real names; use a pseudonym) to include age, gender, diagnosis (as applicable).
- Operational definition of challenging behavior.
- Location and dates of each assessment.
- Brief description of the assessment procedure performed. You will describe the FAST and the type of ABC data collected. Use the Cooper et al., 2020 textbook as your source.
- Results of the FAST (in column graph)
- Results of the ABC data collection process, a description of the maintaining contingencies for the target behavior- including hypothesized function and rationale for this hypothesis
- Description of the FA procedures you “will” use (the FA is hypothetical, you will not complete an FA, but you will plan for it and write out the steps in this report.
- Graphed hypothetical data from the FA that confirms your hypothesized function, identified through the ABC process.
Report Template
SPE 527 Functional Behavior Assessment Report TEMPLATE (3).pdf
Sample FBA – Willie Nelson (1).pdf
NOTE: ASSIGNMENTS MUST HAVE A TURN IT IN SCORE, OR THEY WILL NOT BE GRADED.
