Moving from functional assessment to practical behavior support

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Moving from functional assessment to practical
behavior support

• Rob Horner
• University of Oregon

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Goals

• Define the systems and practices needed for
  individual student behavior support.
• Build fluency at team process for using
  functional behavioral assessment information to
  guide the design of practical behavior support
  plans.

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Design and Implementation of Behavior Support

• The BSP Team
• Knowledge about the student
• Knowledge about the context
• Knowledge about behavioral theory
• The School Systems (Admin)
• Time, People, Review systems, Data sources
• The District Support
• Training for teams, specialists, administrators
• Data Systems
• Collaboration Structure (families, JJ, MH)

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Implementation Levels
State
District
School
Classroom
Student
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Self-Assessment

• Are school-level systems in place?
• Policy/Commitment
• Personnel
• Team-meeting structure
• Faculty understanding of process
• Are team-level systems in place?
• Faculty request for assistance
• Functional assessment
• Design of behavior support
• Implementation and evaluation of behavior support

Self-assessment
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Behavior Support Elements
Team Specialist
Problem Behavior
Hypothesis statement Competing Behavior
Analysis Technical Adequacy of Plan
Functional Assessment
Implementation Plan Contextual Fit
Content of Support Plan
Fidelity of Implementation
Monitor, Adapt
Person-centered planning Wraparound
Impact on Behavior and Lifestyle
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Tools for Functional Behavioral Assessment and
BSP Design

• Conducting a functional behavioral assessment
• FBA (FACTS, Student-guided, FAI, ABC, FAOI)
• Outcomes of FBA
• (1) Behavior (within classes and routines), (2)
  Antecedents (immediate triggers and distal
  setting events), (3) Consequences, (4) Data
• Moving from FBA to design of support
• Competing behavior analysis
• Team meeting process
• BSP content and implementation
• Contextual fit
• Implementation plan
• Repeated evaluation and adaptation
• Assess quality of implementation
• Assess impact

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Tools for Functional Behavioral Assessment and
BSP Design

• Conducting a functional behavioral assessment
• FBA (FACTS, Student-guided, FAI, ABC, FAOI)
• Outcomes of FBA
• (1) Behavior (within classes and routines), (2)
  Antecedents (immediate triggers and distal
  setting events), (3) Consequences, (4) Data
• Moving from FBA to design of support
• Competing behavior analysis
• Team meeting process
• BSP content and implementation
• Contextual fit
• Implementation plan
• Repeated evaluation and adaptation
• Assess quality of implementation
• Assess impact

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Functional Assessment Defined

• Functional behavioral assessment is a process for
  identifying the events that reliably predict and
  maintain problem behavior.

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Primary Purposes of Functional Behavioral
Assessment

• The primary purpose of functional behavioral
  assessment is to improve the effectiveness and
  efficiency of behavior support.
• Behavior support plans built from functional
  assessment are more effective
• Didden et al., 1997 Newcomer Lewis, in press
• Carr et al., 1999 Ingram, 2002
• Create order out of chaos (define contextual
  information, where, when, with whom, etc)
• Professional accountability (IDEA, 1997)

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Primary Purposes of Functional Behavioral
Assessment

• it appears that the use of pretreatment
  functional analysis increases the likelihood that
  experimenters will choose reinforcement-based
  treatments for SIB and aggression, as opposed to
  punishment-based treatments .
• Pelios, Morren, Tesch, Axelrod, JABA, 1999

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Functional AssessmentLevel of FA Simple,
Interview, Observation, Functional Analysis

• Define problem behavior
• Define controlling routines
• ProcessDefine problem, define hypotheses,
  confirm hypotheses, use confirmed hypotheses for
  support plan development.
• FA Hypothesis Statements
• Setting event -gt Antecedent -gt Problem-gt
  Consequence
• Stimulus
  Behavior
• Behavior Support Plan should indicate how FA was
  done, and what hypotheses were confirmed.

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Outcomes of a Functional Assessment

• Operational definitions of problem behaviors (by
  response class)
• Identification of events that reliably predict
  occurrence and non-occurrence of problem
  behaviors (routines analysis).
• Identification of maintaining functions
• Hypothesis statement (summary of FA information)
• Direct observation data confirming hypotheses.

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Hypothesis Statement
Setting Events
Triggering Antecedents
Maintaining Consequences
Problem Behavior
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2
3
4
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Functional Assessment Hypothesis Statements

• Define Routine
• Define Controlling Relationships
• Emphasis on precision of description. The higher
  the precision, the more useful the FA hypothesis
  statement
• Setting Event --gt Antecedent--gt Problem --gt
  Maintaining
• 
  Behavior Consequence
• Headache --gt Task Demand --gt Scream --gt Avoid
• 
  Demand
• Headache --gt Request to read --gt Scream --gt
  Avoid
• in front of class
  embarrassment

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Maintaining Consequences

• One maintaining consequence per hypothesis
• A single problem behavior may serve multiple
  consequences, but typically this occurs across
  routines/not within routines.
• Maintaining consequences are narrowly defined.
• Get or avoid?
• Social or Physiological?
• Precise event/action/object?

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Identifying Maintaining Consequences
Given a Problem Behavior and a specific routine
Get Object, Activity, Sensation
Avoid Object, Activity, Sensation
Get Social/Obj
Get Physiological
Avoid Social/Obj
Avoid Physiological
Precise Event
Precise Event
Precise Event
Precise Event
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Example of hypothesis statements

• When he misses breakfast peers tease him about
  his walk, Caesar calls them names hits them.
  Teasing stops.

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Hypothesis Statement
Setting Events
Triggering Antecedents
Maintaining Consequences
Problem Behavior
Name calling Hits.
Misses breakfast.
Teased by peers.
Teasing stops.
Function Escape aversive social contact
Function Escape negative social contact
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Effective Environments

• Problem behaviors are irrelevant
• Aversive events are removed
• Access to positive events are more common
• Problem behaviors are inefficient
• Appropriate behavioral alternatives available
• Appropriate behavioral alternatives are taught
• Problem behaviors are ineffective
• Problem behaviors are not rewarded

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Competing Behavior Analysis

• Describe the current situation/context.
• Describe the features of an effective context
• Provide a structure for identifying how the
  current context could be changed to include
  desirable features.
• Make problem behavior
• Irrelevant, inefficient, ineffective
• Make desirable behavior
• Fluent, prompted, rewarded

CBA
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Using FBA information to design support

• Apply
• Principles of behavior analysis
• Knowledge of context and student
• Expertise of staff, family, student
• Contextual fit
• (values, skills, resources, administrative
  support)
• CBA Template

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Examples

• Charles
• Isabelle
• Luis
• Marianne