Part 3: Conduct a Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA)

ABC Data Sheet Record each instance of one behavior, as well as the antecedent (what happened right before the behavior), the consequence (what happened right after the behavior), and what the possible function of that behavior was (what outcome did it achieve for the child/student?). Date: ___________________________ Time of Observation: __________________________________

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Antecedent Behavior Consequence Possible Function (Attention, Access to items/ activities, Escape, Sensory)

Functional Behavior Assessment Report

(REMEMBER YOU WILL HAVE A COVER PAGE!)

Summary

This Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA) was completed for a 6 year old male, “Willie

Nelson” (a pseudonym), who will be a first grader at Georgia On My Mind Elementary School

during the next academic year. During the period of time that this FBA was completed, Willie

was attending the school’s summer school program for children entering first grade from

Kindergarten. Summer school runs from 7:45am-11:45am daily, with one teacher and one

special education teaching assistant in the room. Summer school dates for 2022 were June

6-July 1. Willie was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) when he was 3 years old

and receives special education services in his general education classroom throughout the

school day. For this assessment, both indirect and direct assessment methods were used to

hypothesize the function of his challenging behaviors. The Functional Assessment Screening

Tool (FAST; author, year) was complete on 6/19/22 by Willie’s general education teacher.

Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence (ABC) data were collected by the teaching assistant from

6/13-6/24/22, resulting in 6 episodes of behavior. ABC data were collected in the first grade

classroom, the hallway, the gym, playground, lunchroom, and the art and music rooms.

Target Behavior

Willie is generally a well behaved, joyful youngster who plays appropriately with peers

and is respectful to adults. However, on occasion, Willie will demonstrate what staff refer to as

“tantrum” behavior. During a tantrum, Willie will scream and cry (loud vocalization that is audible

from the hallway or the next room), and often throw himself to the floor and kick his feet (from a

walking, standing, or seated position). He has kicked others who approach him during these

moments, but staff believe these kicks are unintentional because Willie always flails his feet

about when he is engaged in a tantrum on the floor. Data reveals that these incidents occur on

average 2-3 times per week. For purposes of this FBA, “tantrum” was defined as any incident

including both screaming or crying and throwing himself to the floor (with or without feet flailing).

Incidents of screaming alone, crying alone, or falling to the floor without vocalizations were not

counted as “tantrum behaviors”.

FAST Results

The FAST (author, year) was completed as a structured interview between this assessor

and Willie’s general education teacher, Mrs. D’Angelo during via Zoom meeting on Sunday,

June 19, 2022. The FAST contains 27 yes/no questions designed to identify the most and least

likely circumstances in which a challenging behavior might occur. Below are the graphed data

from the FAST assessment.

Results from the FAST indicate that Willie’s tantruming behavior is most likely earning

him some environmental, “social” consequence, such as attention, a tangible, or escape. The

FAST results do not support an “automatic” function of behavior, meaning that the tantrums do

not appear to Mrs. D’Angelo as either sensory or pain attenuation type behaviors. Results from

the FAST are to be taken in consideration with all other data, given their reliance on recollection

and perception (Boutot, year).

ABC-R Data Analysis & Hypothesized Function

In order to gather objective data on the environmental variables potentially associated

with Willie’s tantrum behavior, an Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence (ABC) chart was

completed. This chart, completed by Ms. Koepke, the special education teaching assistant

assigned to Willie’s classroom, contains information about the date and time of each incident;

the location and activities during each incident; if applicable, who was present or involved in the

incident; the antecedent (what occurs immediately prior to the incident); the behavior (in this

case, “tantrums” as previously defined); the consequences (what happens immediately after the

behavior); and the student’s response to the consequence (e.g., did it continue, escalate, or

stop). When an ABC data sheet contains student response data, it may be called an ABC-R

chart (Boutot, year). Following a 1 hour training, Ms. Koepke collected data on each tantrum

incident (that she was present to view) for 9 consecutive summer school days.

Results from an analysis of the ABC-R data indicate that the most common antecedents

to Willie’s tantrums were being denied access to something, when another student took

something he wanted, or when told it was time to put something he was playing with away.

There were no other antecedents to the tantrum behaviors. The most common consequence to

Willie’s tantrum was staff attention, followed by peer attention. Often the staff attention involved

asking Willie what he wanted, or offering him a “first-then” option (e.g., “first get back in your

seat and then you can have your iPad”). There were no other consequences to his tantrums.

When staff offered the “first-then” option, his tantrum would stop (though twice he did continue

to cry for a period of a few minutes) and he would comply with their requests.

Based on the data from this ABC-R, it appears that the function of Willie’s tantrum

behavior is “access to tangible”. What this means is that when Willie is told he cannot have

something, or is told to put something he wants to continue engaging with away, he engages in

tantrum behaviors to access (or to continue to have access) that item. Tangible appears to be

the most likely function of the tantrum behavior due to the fact that in each incident, the behavior

continued (or escalated) when he was offered an alternative choice, but stopped once he was

offered a method of obtaining the desired item. The ABC-R data sheet is provided in the

appendix to this report.

FA Procedures & Hypothetical Results

Functional analysis (FA) procedures are commonly used by behavior analysts and others to

confirm a hypothesized function of behavior that was identified through an FBA process. In

order to confirm that the function of Willlie’s behavior is, in fact, access to tangible, the following

FA procedures will be undertaken.

Tangible Condition

To assess if his behavior serves a tangible function, we will first conduct a preference

assessment of known or suspected preferred items, to determine which are his top 2-3

preferred items. For each item, we will give Willie free access for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes of

free time with each item, we will tell Willie, “it’s time to put X (item) away now”. If Willie engages

in tantrum behavior, we will immediately tell him, “Okay, you can have 5 more minutes”. If the

behavior stops after we give him the extra time, we can surmise that the behavior is serving a

tangible function. If the tantrum behavior either does not occur, or it continues or escalates after

being given the extra time, we can then determine the function is likely not tangible access. This

condition will be repeated across four sessions.

Escape Condition