Functional Behavioral Assessment (Elementary): Identifying the Reasons for Student Behavior

Assessment

Take some time now to answer the following questions. Please note that the IRIS Center does not collect your Assessment responses. If this is a course assignment, you should turn them in to your professor using whatever method he or she requires. If you have trouble answering any of the questions, go back and review the Perspectives & Resources pages in this module.

1. Define the four functions of behavior.
2. Describe two ways subjectivity can be reduced during the FBA process.
3. Wade is a student who has exhibited interfering behavior in the classroom for several months. Specifically, Wade’s teachers report that he can become combative when asked to work on assignments. He will verbally refuse, argue, and curse, becoming louder and more disruptive if a teacher continues to prompt him to work. Although Wade’s teachers have taught classroom rules and procedures and have tried to provide more behavior-specific praise when Wade follows directions, his behavior has not changed. In fact, Wade’s verbal outbursts have occurred almost daily for the past two weeks, resulting in five office referrals.
    
   1. Explain why it might be appropriate for Wade’s educators to initiate the FBA process.

   2. Wade’s FBA team drafts the following description of his interfering behavior:

      Wade refuses to work when told to do an assignment he doesn’t want to do.

      Rewrite the team’s description so that it is observable, measurable, and actively stated. Justify your corrections.

   3. Once the FBA team has a finalized operational definition, they are ready to gather data on his behavior. List at least two types of indirect assessments the team might use to gather data and explain how those assessments can provide history and context for Wade’s behavior.
   4. Wade’s team completes the indirect assessments and collects ABC data on his behavior across different contexts over the course of two weeks. A summary of this comprehensive data is provided in the table below. Use the information in the table to write a hypothesis statement (in the Summary column of Step 6) that describes the full context of the target behavior and its likely function.

      Step	Summary
      1. Identify skill deficits	Wade’s target behavior occurs primarily during mathematics lessons. Recent assessments show that he is performing below grade level in mathematics. This skill deficit will be addressed by his teacher during after-school tutoring.
      2. Summarize the context	Wade is more likely to demonstrate the behavior when presented with independent practice activities or assessments in mathematics.
      3. Identify any relevant setting events	The target behavior is more likely to occur when Wade hasn’t slept well the night before.
      4. Evaluate patterns in antecedents	The teacher verbally directs Wade to begin working on an independent mathematics activity or assessment.
      5. Evaluate patterns in consequences	After a few reminders, the teacher either ignores Wade or sends him to the principal’s office, and Wade does not complete the assignment.
      6. Hypothesize the function

4. Watch the video below and fill out the ABC analysis form on Kira, the girl in the white shirt.
   (time: 0:58)

   View Transcript | Click to the view the ABC analysis form in a new window
   Click to download the ABC analysis form

   Transcript: Assessment

   Teacher: All right, so today we’re going to talk about stories. What makes a good story?

   Kira: [Whistles]

   Teacher: Kira, that’s enough. Thank you.

   Teacher: What makes a good story? Yes, Kira?

   Kira: Um, one that has a girl that has blonde hair and blue eyes.

   Teacher: Okay.

   Kira: Just like me.

   Teacher: Anybody? Okay, yes.

   Student: Maybe it has some action in it and maybe, like, action.

   Teacher: Okay. And do stories have to be true?

   Students: No. No.

   Teacher: No. And how can you start a story? Yes, Kira.

   Kira: With a “The End.”

   Teacher: Okay. Thank you. That’s enough. Yes?

   Student: With maybe with someone getting in trouble.

   Teacher: Someone’s getting in trouble.