A functional behavior assessment is an evidence-based process that identifies the function of challenging behaviors in order for educators to develop behavior intervention plans for students with disabilities. All behaviors are under stimulus control and research indicates that behaviors typically serve four functions: tangible, escape, attention,…

Over the past several decades, we have developed quality behavioral assessments and interventions for challenging behaviors among individuals with a variety of severe developmental and cognitive disorders. These assessments and interventions have been used to educate family members on how to understand and intervene with these behaviors at home…

Challenging behaviors are prevalent among adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). In this review, we used the What Works Clearinghouse Standards (WWC) to evaluate the quality of 84 studies that aimed to treat the challenging behaviors of adults with IDD, ages 22 years and older, using a function-based intervention. Then, we…

Food selectivity affects up to 72% and 45% of individuals with and without disabilities, respectively, and there is a need for interventions that rely on positive, unrestrictive strategies. We evaluated an assessment and treatment package for food selectivity for young children with developmental disabilities that prioritized caregiver…

Challenging behaviors involving food are common for individuals with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) and often lead to obesity and other chronic health conditions. Efforts to decrease these behaviors, such as isolation during meals and strict monitoring of food consumption, can be stigmatizing. To decrease the food stealing of a 7 year-old girl with…

Telehealth is increasingly being employed to extend the reach of behavior analytic interventions to families of children with developmental disorders who exhibit problem behaviors. In this preliminary study, we examined whether function-based behavior analytic interventions could be delivered via telehealth over 12 weeks to decrease problem…

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act requires that functional behavior assessments be conducted under certain circumstances for students with disabilities. Functional assessments may include indirect assessments (e.g., rating scales, interviews), direct-descriptive assessments (e.g., direct observations with conditional…

In working with individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs), it is direct care staff who are often required to collect data on individuals' behavior which is used as the basis for implementation of empirically based approaches for intervention and treatment. Due to limited resources, indirect and descriptive measures of…

Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA) and behavior interventions have been effective in the management of challenging behavior among children with developmental disabilities including autism spectrum disorders. Research suggests the need for valid measurement instruments for verifying, calibrating and scoring competence in FBA and behavior…

Background: Children with a developmental disability often engage in challenging behaviour, which may require that parents implement behavioural assessments and interventions. The purpose of our pilot study was to examine the effects of an interactive web training (IWT) to teach behavioural function identification and intervention selection to…

Previous studies have focused on whether a trial-based functional analysis (FA) yields the same outcomes as more traditional FAs, and whether interventions based on trial-based FAs can reduce socially maintained problem behavior. We included a full range of behavior functions and taught 3 teachers to conduct a trial-based FA with 3 boys with…

Analogue functional analyses are a well-researched means of determining behavioral function in research and clinical contexts. However, conducting analogue functional analyses in school settings can be problematic and may lead to inconclusive results. The purpose of this study was to compare the results of a trial-based functional analysis with…

Coprophagia, the ingestion of fecal matter, occurs among some individuals with developmental disabilities and is associated with a variety of health risks (e.g., diarrhea, intestinal parasites, blood-borne pathogens; Parry-Jones & Parry-Jones, 1992). Studies that have evaluated operant-based treatments of coprophagia have been limited by a lack of…

The prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)--a group of developmental disabilities that cause severe problems with socialization, behavior, and communication--continues to grow. In 2008, the year that "Odyssey" focused on autism, the estimated prevalence of ASD for hearing children was 1 in 150 (CDC, 2007), while today estimates suggest…

We assessed problem and appropriate behavior in the natural environment from a matching perspective. Problem and appropriate behavior were conceptualized as concurrently available responses, the occurrence of which was thought to be determined by the relative rates or durations of reinforcement. We also assessed whether response allocation could…