Functional Assessment & Functional Analysis
David screamed, he was loud and visibly distraught. Third, David was often not receiving a lot of attention from his parents before the behavior. When Mandy looked at this information laid out in front of her, she was surprised to see these patterns emerged. She knew that she and her husband were loving parents who gave David a lot of attention throughout the day. Why was he screaming when he didn’t have their attention? The behavior analyst pointed out that David wanted to be around them because they were so responsive to his needs, as good parents are. They have provided much reinforcement throughout David’s life and as a result, he highly valued their attention. The team was well on its way to figuring out what to do to improve the situation. They knew one of David’s possible reinforcers was attention from Mom and Dad. The behavior analyst asked the parents how they could more carefully use their attention to increase David’s appropriate behavior. The parents decided to provide David with attention when he was acting appropriately: perhaps doing so before David was likely to scream might prevent the behavior altogether. The behavior analyst thought this was a great idea and added one more. The parents could also teach David an easy way to communicate what he wanted. While he could say some words some of the time, he often didn’t use his words when he was overwhelmed or frustrated. Providing him with easy ways, such as hand signals, to quickly communicate that he wanted to leave a situation or ask for attention could also lessen the chance of the screaming behavior happening again. This example demonstrates the process of functional assessment and the beginning phase of intervention planning. There are
other components that this team could add to David’s treatment plan. It is important to note that behaviors that may seem to suddenly occur out of the blue or have no connection to the immediate environment, may in fact be related to the immediate
Resources
Frea, W. D., Koegel, L. K., & Koegel, R. L. (1994). Understanding why problem behaviors occur: A guide for assisting parents in assessing causes of behavior and designing treatment plans. Santa Barbara, CA: University of California. Available at http://www.education.ucsb. edu/autism/behaviormanuals.html Glasberg, B. A. (2005). Functional behavior assessment for people with autism: Making sense of seemingly senseless behavior. Bethesda, MD: Woodbine House. O’Neill, R. E., Horner, R. H., Albin, R. W., Sprague, J. R., Storey, K., and Newton, J. S. (1997). Functional assessment and program development for problem behavior: A practical handbook (2nd ed.). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks Publishing Company. Romanczyk, R. (1996). Behavioral analysis and assessment: The cornerstone to effectiveness. In C. Maurice (Ed.), G. Green, & S. C. Luce (Co-eds.). Behavioral intervention for young children with autism: A manual for parents and professionals (pp.195- 217). Austin, TX: PRO-ED.
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ABA Principles & Methods
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