This article discusses some of the major challenges school districts face in implementing functional behavioral assessments (FBAs). A school improvement initiative, "Success4," is presented to illustrate an Iowa approach. Arguments are presented for fundamental changes in order to enhance school district effectiveness and accountability…

A functional analysis was performed on a five-year-old nonverbal Autistic female with severe self-injurious behaviors. The self-injurious behaviors (hand-to-head, hand-to-jaw, hand-to-face) and loud vocalizations were targeted. Two types of sessions, enriched environment and instructor controlled preferred stimuli, were alternated throughout the…

This study examined the effects of increasing task difficulty when inadequately challenging tasks are assigned. Jason, a 10-year-old, typically developing Caucasian boy, attended a fourth-grade general education classroom at a public elementary school. During independent academic assignments in math and reading, Jason often talked with other…

Access to public community job-training sites can be restricted if students with moderate mental retardation exhibit behavior unacceptable to nondisabled coworkers or the general public. The authors conducted a functional behavioral assessment (FBA) in public community settings to determine the function of each student's problem behavior. They…

Teaching strategies that work for typically developing children often do not work for those diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. However, teaching strategies that work for children with autism do work for typically developing children. In this article, the author explains how the principles and concepts of Applied Behavior Analysis can be…

In the current study, nursing home staff were taught to administer functional analyses to determine the variables maintaining aggression by an elder with dementia. The results indicated that aggression was evoked during bathroom routines and that escape maintained aggression. Staff then reduced aggression to near-zero levels with noncontingent…

This guide is intended to help California educators comply with requirements of the 1990 Hughes Act (which ensured the right of the state's special education students to a behavioral intervention plan) and with requirements of the reauthorized Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (1997) concerning functional behavioral assessment and…

An adolescent with developmental disabilities who used a wheelchair was anecdotally observed to display little aggressive behavior when being pushed, but higher rates when movement was terminated. A functional analysis confirmed the elevated aggression and the child was taught to request movement through appropriate means. Aggression decreased…

This article discusses the contributions of applied behavior analysis (ABA) in effective instruction of students with autism spectrum disorders. Emphasis is on the use of antecedent interventions and curriculum-based assessment. It also notes that the principles and methods of ABA are being integrated into routine educational procedures, including…

This article discusses three major purposes of observation in functional behavioral assessment: to describe and help analyze the classroom events leading to challenging behaviors, to develop and evaluate the accuracy of hypotheses about these triggers, and to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions for challenging behavior developed from the…

An analysis of 396 articles (that included 706 participants) on the treatment of self-injurious behavior found the use of reinforcement-based interventions has increased during the past decade, whereas the use of punishment-based interventions has decreased slightly; both of these trends coincide with an increase in the use of functional…

This study evaluated self-control and impulsivity in two nine-year- old males with severe developmental disabilities and behavior disorders. Functional analyses suggested that aggression was reinforced by food access. A differential reinforcement procedure to reinforce appropriate mands was implemented. Although aggression occurred when it…

A function-based behavioral treatment package was developed for an 18-year-old male with mild mental retardation in a specialized inpatient unit for treatment of severe destructive behaviors associated with school refusal behavior. Treatment goals were achieved relatively quickly and follow-up data indicated treatment effects were durable.…

Functional behavioral assessment (FBA) is an assessment procedure used to identify the reasons for children's misbehavior. In this article we provide an overview of one approach to FBA known as "multimodal functional behavioral assessment" (MFBA) that provides a comprehensive examination of the causes of children's disruptive behavior. The…

We conducted functional analyses of disruptive behavior in a classroom setting for two students of typical intelligence with emotional/behavioral disorders (E/BD) using the classroom teacher to implement functional analysis conditions. The functional analyses suggested that both participants' disruptive behavior was maintained by escape from task…