Test Two
Test two evaluates your knowledge and skills related to functional life skills assessment and functional behavioral assessment.
On this web page you find questions that will help you explore and become knowledgeable about several assessments appropriate for assessing academics, life skills, and adaptive skills. You are expected to explore the assessments as you answer the questions found on this web page. These questions also serve as a study guide for TEST 2.
Each of the assessments are available from the Special Education office. Please check with the department secretary about checking out the assessments. Check the assessment instruments back in with someone in the Special Education office when you are finished with them.
Functional Behavioral Assessment represents an assessment process rather than an assessment instrument. Look back to your SpEd 471/571 Behavior Modification textbook for an overview of Functional Behavioral Assessment. In the following paragraphs I have provided an brief overview of functional behavioral assessment. Please look to other resources for further explanations.
When you are concerned with "why" a student performs a specific behavior you are really wondering "what function the behavior serves". To identify the function of behavior, you are really trying to answer 1) what antecedent causes the behavior, 2) what consequence is maintaining the behavior, or 3) what alternative, more appropriate, behavior could replace the interfering behavior. A behavior performed by two different students may serve totally different functions for each person. We may feel that a small child, Leo who, at age 18 months, who hits his playmates needs to have consequences to reduce (or stop) this behavior. Focusing on reducing (or stopping) the hitting behavior is targeting the form (hitting) rather than the function of the behavior. If we want to find out why Leo is hitting his playmates we need to answer the question, "what is the function (or purpose) of the behavior. In identifying the purpose (i.e., Leo hits his playmate, the playmate gives him a toy), we would then address the problem behavior by using praise or other social reinforcement each time the child asks to play with a toy rather than using aversive consequences for reducing the hitting behavior. We analyze problem behavior in relation to both antecedent stimuli (conditions that are present when the problem behavior occurs) and consequent stimuli (conditions that are present after the behavior occurs). By analyzing these stimuli we are determining the environmental variables that support the behavior. Changing these variables leads us to behavioral supports that address the purpose or function of the behavior.
At times, it is difficult to identify a function of a behavior. Sometimes behaviors are maintained by antecedent or consequences that are not easily observed. Perhaps Leo hits more often after lunch when he is tired and ready to take a nap. Leo's tiredness could be an antecedent to the increased frequency of his behavior. Tiredness may not be readily observable but it will be a variable that affects the management of Leo's hitting behavior.
Many inappropriate behaviors are demonstrated by children to achieve either positive or negative reinforcement. A child interrupts the class with funny statements because peers laugh (attention-positive reinforcement). Another child doesn't complete his morning assignments because the teacher keeps him inside during the noon recess (negative reinforcement-he really didn't want to go outside in the cold). This example represents negative reinforcement because the student's behavior of assignment in completion has been reinforced because when exhibiting this behavior the students was reinforced by avoiding going outside(to him, going outside is the aversive consequence).
In some cases, automatic positive reinforcement or automatic negative reinforcement may by maintaining the behavior. Automatic reinforcement occurs when the consequence is not delivered by another person but rather some type of internal reinforcement occurs when the behavior occurs. Imagine sitting in a college classroom, feeling bored, and almost falling asleep. You cross your legs and start moving your foot back and forth. This could be viewed as either positive or negative automatic reinforcement (positive-the stimulation feels good; negative-the bored feeling is somewhat relieved).
Sometimes a behavior serves a communicative function. A young child screams when he wants more food. His parents give him more food each time he screams. Screaming therefore serves the function of getting more to eat. By identifying this, we can teach the student to sign "more" and then provide reinforcement to the child performs when he/she signs "more" and ignore (extinction) the screaming behavior.
Functional Assessment Indirect: Interview
Purpose: Get a picture of the problem behavior and the environmental conditions and/or events that surround the behavior.
Information to be gathered about the behavior: topography, times of day, activities, settings, materials, people, antecedents, what the student does, what other people do, medication, efforts taken to reduce the behavior
Direct: Scatter Plot Analysis
Purpose: Identify the level of behavior across the day. Does the behavior occur more frequently in some environments and less in others, or, does it occur during specific time periods during the day?
Procedure: Develop a grid (forms are available) that provides a square for each half-hour of the day over successive days. In observing the student, record a diagonal slash mark through the square if the behavior occurred one time during the half hour; completely fill the square if the behavior occurred more than one time during the half hour. Squares are left blank if the behavior did not occur within that half hour.
Direct: A-B-C Assessment
Purpose: Describe and evaluate the stimuli surrounding a behavior through direct observation of the behavior.
Procedure: Each time the behavior occurs immediately write down the environmental events (antecedent) that were present when the behavior occurred (A) as well as the consequences (or environmental events) that occurred immediately following the behavior (others' reactions, etc.)
Example
Stage 2 Purpose: The purpose of the second stage, functional analysis, is to manipulate antecedent and consequent variables to determine the effect each has on behavior. To manipulate variables systematically we use an Alternate Treatment Design. We can manipulate both antecedent or consequent variables to evaluate the functions of behavior. Procedure: First we take baseline data on the problem behavior. Following baseline we manipulate a variable to see the effect it has on behavior. We then return to baseline for a brief measure and then manipulate another variable to determine the impact that variable has on the behavior. We continue this process until we have identify the variable that has the most favorable impact on behavior. Example: Anna has difficulties staying on task. Through our initial stage of functional assessment we have hypothesized that task difficulty is a factor that affects this behavior. We take baseline on her on task behavior, then we give her a difficult task and monitor the behavior, we return to baseline for repeated sessions and then provide her with an easier task and continue to monitor her performance. Repeated sessions with both conditions will provide evidence to support or not support our hypothesis. We have just completed a functional analysis.