Functional Behavioral Analysis

Individuals with developmental disabilities who exhibit dangerous, disruptive, and problematic behaviors challenge the resources of practitioners and families. In these cases, a functional behavioral analysis (FBA) is recommended. An FBA is used to evaluate the behaviors of individuals that interfere with the acquisition of skills, personal independence, or satisfactory interpersonal relationships. An FBA is both a theoretical framework for understanding human behavior and a set of assessment procedures. When conducting FBAs, practitioners identify and describe the relationships between the unique characteristics of the student and the environmental variables that “trigger” and reinforce behavior. An FBA is a systematic process that results in the identification and description of those variables. The results of an FBA are then used as the basis for designing individually tailored behavior ...