Why a Functional Assessment of Behavior is Important?

Functional behavior assessment is generally considered to be an approach that incorporates a variety of techniques and strategies to diagnose the causes and to identify likely interventions intended to address problem behaviors. In other words, a functional behavior assessment looks beyond the overt topography of the behavior, and focuses, instead upon identifying biological, social, affective, and environmental factors that initiate, sustain, or end the behavior in question. This approach is important because it leads the observer beyond the “symptom” (the behavior) to the student’s underlying motivation to escape, “avoid”, or “get” something (which is, to the behavior analyst, the root of the behavior). Research and experience have demonstrated that behavior intervention plans stemming from the knowledge of “why” a student misbehaves (i.e., based on a functional behavior assessment) are extremely useful in addressing a wide range of problem behaviors.

The functions of behavior are not usually considered inappropriate. Rather, it is the behavior itself that is judge appropriate or inappropriate. For example, getting high grades and acting-out may serve the same function (i.e. getting attention from adults), yet, the behaviors that lead to good grades are judge to be more appropriate than those that make up acting-out behavior. For example, if the IEP team determines through a functional behavior assessment that a student is seeking attention by acting-out, the team can develop a plan to teach the student more appropriate ways to gain attention, thereby filling the student’s need for attention with an alternative behavior that serves the same function as the inappropriate behavior.

By incorporating a functional behavior assessment into the evaluation IEP process, the IEP team members can gain the information needed to develop a plan or include strategies in the IEP, and the IEP team members can develop a plan that teaches and supports replacement behaviors, which serve the same function as the problem behavior, itself (e.g., teaching John to calmly tell the teacher when he feels frustrated, and to ask for assistance when he finds a task too difficult to accomplish). At the same time, strategies may be developed to decrease or even eliminate opportunities for the student to engage in behavior that hinders positive academic results (e.g., making sure that John’s assignments are at his instructional level.