In contrast with professional norms and best practices, the legal requirements for functional behavioral assessments (FBAs) and behavior intervention plans (BIPs) are meager in scope and specificity (Collins & Zirkel, 2017). Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act makes no mention of FBAs or BIPs, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education…

Functional communication training (FCT) provides an efficient means for reducing a variety of challenging behaviors while increasing social communication. After establishing a functional communication response (FCR), interventionists may need to design a program to thin the schedule of reinforcement to provide more durable effects and maintenance…

Effective treatment of challenging behaviors in young children with autism spectrum disorder requires identifying consequences that maintain the behavior under specific environmental circumstances. Assessment strategies help to identify environmental factors setting the occasion for the behaviors to continue to occur. Many studies have used…

This dissertation was designed to determine which behavior analytic intervention was more effective in the treatment and reduction of mouthing non-nutritive substances in children diagnosed with autism. This study included four participants in an A-B-A reversal design with a component analysis across four intervention phases. The study…

For students with severe or complex challenging behavior, incorporating hypothesis testing as a component of functional behavior assessment (FBA) is often warranted. Several hypothesis testing strategies (i.e., functional analysis, antecedent analysis, concurrent operant analysis) can confirm whether and how features of a student's environment…

The present study used functional analysis and tested for the effects of a treatment package on the increase of play and decrease of stereotypy with a student with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who attended an inclusive international school in Hong Kong. The treatment package was a partial replication of a toy conditioning procedure from Tsai…

There has been significant progress in our understanding of school-based social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) assessments since the last special issue on this topic a decade ago. This commentary provides a discussion of how each of the articles exemplifies the progress that has been made to advance the science of SEB assessment within…

Individualization and iterative design are essential components of the assessment and treatment of challenging behavior. Currently, there are few validated frameworks for engaging in iterative processes. Due to the nature of single-case design, empirically rigorous evaluations of decision-tree processes are particularly prohibitive.…

Persistent challenging behaviors in early childhood can interfere and disrupt children's engagement in social and academic activities within their homes, schools, and communities (Brauner & Stephens, 2006; Division for Early Childhood [DEC], 2017). To address this concern, DEC recommends that early childhood practitioners use functional…

Educational accommodations, which alter the manner in which instruction or assessments are administered, are often an appropriate part of a student's academic program. However, accommodations are frequently overused and have significant limitations. De-implementing inappropriate accommodations is a complex task, but one made easier through a clear…

Background: In the Spanish and Catalan context, there is currently a lack of standardized, linguistically adapted tools to assess people with communication disorders. This lack is especially evident when it comes to instruments designed to assess functional communication. Aims: The main objective of this study is to adapt the instrument entitled…

Functional communication training (FCT) is an effective intervention for teaching communication responses and reducing challenging behavior. One limitation of FCT is that frequent reinforcement may be impractical or impossible in many situations. Recently, Mitteer et al. published a tutorial in the journal "AAC" that provided video…

For speakers belonging to multiple verbal communities, functional analyses of verbal behavior allow for dynamic control over response topography. The simple practice of allowing the speaker the freedom to select the language of instruction minimizes cultural bias and hegemony. We extended the research on functional analyses of verbal behavior to…

As the rates of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) increase, so does the need to provide high-quality and empirically validated supports across the lifespan. Despite most of an individual's life taking place in adulthood, it is well-documented that the supports and services for adults with ASD are severely lacking. This is evidenced by outcomes…

Special educators are often considered the experts in their school when it comes to developing functional behavior assessments (FBA) and behavior intervention plans (BIP), yet rarely are they trained much beyond basic antecedents, behaviors, and consequences (ABC). This column discusses concepts that will expand special education professionals'…