Functional Behavioral Assessment

Functional behavioral assessment is a systematic process, grounded in applied behavior analysis, for identifying the function, the purpose a specific problem behavior serves for an individual, rather than judging the behavior only by its outward form. The approach was influentially demonstrated in a widely cited 1982 study by Brian Iwata and colleagues, Toward a Functional Analysis of Self-Injury, which showed experimentally that outwardly similar instances of self-injurious behavior could serve different underlying functions, including escape from an unwanted demand, gaining adult or peer attention, gaining access to a preferred item or activity, or automatic sensory reinforcement produced by the behavior itself, and that an effective intervention depends on correctly identifying which function is operating. A functional behavioral assessment typically combines indirect methods, such as interviews and rating scales completed by teachers or caregivers, direct observation methods that record the antecedents and consequences surrounding each instance of the behavior, and in some cases a functional analysis, in which conditions are systematically varied to test hypotheses about the behavior's function under controlled conditions. In United States special education, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires that a functional behavioral assessment be conducted when a student with a disability's behavior significantly interferes with learning or leads to certain disciplinary removals, with the assessment's findings used to develop an individualized behavior intervention plan targeted at the identified function.