Before a team can reduce a challenging behavior, it needs a good guess about why the behavior keeps happening. Functional assessment is how that guess gets made, and much of the raw data comes from RBTs. This lesson covers the two methods you are most likely to help with: descriptive assessment and functional analysis.
Why it matters
Behavior that keeps happening is usually being reinforced by something: attention, access to an item, a break from a task, or the sensory result of the behavior itself (see functions of behavior). Treatment works best when it targets that function. A plan built on the wrong function can make behavior worse. For example, sending a learner to time-out removes the task, which can strengthen behavior that is maintained by escape from demands.
Your supervisor designs the assessment and interprets the results. Your part is to collect accurate data and to run procedures exactly as written. On the exam, expect scenarios that ask you to name the method being used, pick the condition being run, or choose what an RBT should do next.
Key ideas
- Functional behavior assessment (FBA) is the whole process. It can include indirect methods (interviews and rating scales completed by caregivers or teachers), descriptive assessment, and functional analysis.
- Descriptive assessment means watching, not changing. You observe the behavior during typical routines and record what happens just before and just after it. Nothing is arranged or manipulated on purpose. Write each entry as soon as it is safe, while details are fresh, not from memory at the end of the session.
- Descriptive data show correlation, not cause. If a consequence often follows a behavior, it might be maintaining it, but it might also just happen to be there. That is why supervisors may follow up with a functional analysis.
- Functional analysis means testing. Antecedents and consequences are systematically arranged in test conditions and compared with a control condition. If behavior is reliably higher in one test condition than in the control, that is strong evidence of its function.
- Fidelity and safety come first. In a functional analysis, problem behavior is briefly allowed to produce its possible reinforcer. The FA must be designed and closely supervised by a qualified professional, with safety and stopping rules you follow exactly.
Definitions
- Descriptive assessment: direct observation of behavior and the events around it in the natural environment, without manipulating any variables.
- ABC recording: recording the antecedent (what happened right before), the behavior, and the consequence (what happened right after). In ABC continuous recording, you mark every occurrence during the observation period using a checklist of preset antecedents and consequences. In ABC narrative recording, you write a brief open-ended description each time the behavior occurs.
- Scatterplot: a grid that shows whether, or how much, behavior occurred in each time block across several days, used to spot times of day when it is more likely.
- Functional analysis (FA): an assessment in which antecedents and consequences are arranged systematically to test which one maintains a behavior.
- Common FA conditions:
- Attention: the adult appears busy; problem behavior produces brief attention, such as a statement of concern.
- Escape (demand): tasks are presented; problem behavior produces a brief break from the task.
- Tangible: a preferred item is removed; problem behavior produces brief access to it.
- Alone (or ignore): no social consequences are delivered, to see whether the behavior continues without them (suggesting automatic reinforcement).
- Play (control): preferred items and attention are freely available, no demands are placed, and problem behavior has no programmed consequence. Behavior is usually low here, which is the point of comparison.
Examples from a session
Descriptive assessment at home and school
- ABC narrative recording: Mateo, age 4, cries and drops to the floor at home. Each time, his RBT writes: A: Mom said, "Tablet time is over." B: Mateo cried and lay on the floor for 2 minutes. C: Mom handed back the tablet.
- ABC continuous recording: In a high school classroom, an RBT uses a checklist to mark every time Keisha, age 15, puts her head down, along with checkboxes for "independent work assigned" and "teacher redirected."
- Scatterplot: At a clinic, an RBT shades 30-minute blocks for two weeks to show when an adult client, Mr. Daniels, bites his hand. The blocks before lunch are shaded far more often than the others.
Running an FA condition
Your supervisor asks you to run an escape condition with Lily, age 9. You present the math tasks from the protocol. Each time Lily throws her pencil, you say, "Okay, break," and remove the task for 30 seconds, exactly as written. You do not add attention or preferred items, because the break is the only consequence this condition tests.
In both cases your job is to record what you see and follow the plan precisely. Interpreting the data and naming a function is your supervisor's role. If you notice a pattern, share it; do not change procedures on your own.
Common mistakes / exam traps
- Subjective ABC entries. "He was frustrated" or "she wanted attention" are interpretations. Write what was seen and heard, using the operational definition (see observable, measurable descriptions).
- Mixing up FA conditions. Ask what the problem behavior produces in that condition: attention, a break, an item, or nothing social at all.
- Improvising during an FA. Changing the consequence, the timing, or the order of conditions ruins the comparison. If safety criteria are met, stop as the protocol says and contact your supervisor.
Exam trap
Descriptive assessment vs. functional analysis: if nothing was arranged or manipulated, it is descriptive assessment, even when the data are detailed. Its data show correlation, so a consequence that often follows a behavior is a clue about function, not a confirmed cause.
Exam trap
Test vs. control conditions: the play condition is the control, not a test for "play" as a function. Behavior is usually lowest there because attention and preferred items are freely available and no demands are placed.
Quick check
An RBT observes a student during math class for a week and records what happens right before and right after each instance of desk banging. Nothing about the class routine is changed. What type of assessment is this?