As one component of a functional behavioral assessment, descriptive assessments (DA) can help determine the maintaining variable of a student's problem behavior in school. School districts often employ board-certified behavior analysts as consultants to conduct DAs by observing a student and recording the environmental variables surrounding…

As educators, we are responsible for teaching academic skills. However, some students not only need to learn academic skills but they need behavior support, due to problematic behaviors that are happening in the school setting. In this article, we will learn more of what are the implications, requirements and best strategies for a behavior plan.…

Functional behavior assessment is an important precursor to developing interventions to address a problem behavior. Descriptive analysis, a type of functional behavior assessment, is effective in informing intervention design only if the gathered data accurately capture relevant events and behaviors. We investigated a training procedure to improve…

The student population across U.S. schools has become increasingly diverse and has presented educators with a number of concerns in assisting students demonstrating challenging behaviors. Educators have historically had difficulties in distinguishing between cultural differences and genuine indicators of emotional and behavioral disorders. It is…

This paper provides outcomes of a study examining the effectiveness of a year-long professional development training series designed to support in-service educators in learning a systematic approach to functional assessment-based interventions developed by Umbreit and colleagues (2007) that has met with demonstrated success when implemented with…

Professional development is a necessary component of maintaining competency in professional practice. Technology has opened the door to new formats for delivering professional development, in addition to more traditional modes of training. This study compared three professional development formats for improving the quality of standards-based…

Adolescence is the time during which people develop and form their crucial values, personality traits, and beliefs. Hence, as deviant behaviors occur during adolescence, it is important to guide adolescents away from such behaviors and back to normal behaviors. Moreover, although there are various kinds of deviant behavior, most of them would…

Functional behavioral assessments are commonly used in school settings to assess and develop interventions for problem behavior. The trial-based functional analysis is an approach that teachers can use in their classrooms to identify the function of problem behavior. The current study evaluates the effectiveness of a modified pyramidal training…

A comprehensive, integrated, three-tiered model (CI3T) of prevention is a framework for proactively meeting students' academic, behavioral, and social skills. At the tertiary (Tier 3) level of prevention, functional-assessment based interventions (FABIs) may be used to identify, develop, and implement supports based on the function, or purpose, of…

This paper presents the results of a function-based study initiated by a general education teacher to reduce a general education student's out-of-seat behavior. Procedures included direct observation, data collection, functional behavior assessment using a Functional Assessment Protocol (FAP; Schroeder, n.d.), hypothesis development, and creating…

This study applied the methodology of an analog experimental (functional) analysis of behavior to the specific interaction between parents and three children with mental retardation exhibiting food refusal and related mealtime problems. Analog results were highly consistent with other forms of functional assessment data, including interviews,…

A study examined the usefulness of information secured from eight students displaying substantially more problem behaviors in one classroom (high-risk) than another, and 16 teachers. Students were able to provide reliable information in the functional assessment interview. Moderate to high agreement was obtained between students and teachers in…