Functional behavioral assessment and intervention with emotional/behaviorally disordered students: In pursuit of state of the art.

Abstract

Abstract The application of functional behavioral assessment (FBA) procedures for the purposes of developing interventions for students with emotional and behavioral disorders (E/BD) has received considerable attention since the 1997 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The purpose of this paper is to review the literature addressing the use of FBA with E/BD students in school settings and to discuss implications for a state of the art model that integrates empirically supported procedures with promising practices to be implemented within the ecology of current educational systems. Key Words: Functional behavioral assessment, functional assessment, functional analysis, indirect assessment, direct assessment, emotional disorders, behavioral disorders, descriptive analysis ********** Since the 1997 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), schools have been required to conduct functional behavioral assessments (FBAs) and develop positive behavioral support plans for students with disabilities who were exhibiting challenging behaviors that interfered with their learning or the learning of others. Additionally, cumulative suspensions equaling or exceeding ten days within a school year were considered a change in placement and required the IEP team to conduct the FBA within ten days of the change in placement for those students if a behavior support plan was not in place at the time of the infraction. The 2004 revision of IDEA, The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act, softened the FBA requirements to include only those students whose disciplinary infractions are manifestations of their handicapping condition. While the 1997 legislation did require the use of FBA for students exhibiting significant behavioral difficulties, it did not specify procedures or techniques to assess behavior for the purpose of determining function, thus no gold standard that details how to implement the mandate existed in 1997 and still does not exist. Some authors argue that the legislation was passed prior to the field having adequate empirical literature to demonstrate the use of these procedures with this population. In a review of 97 studies including 458 participants, Nelson, Roberts, Mathur, & Rutherford (1999) concluded that the research base on FBA with all populations was just emerging at the time of the mandate. To comply with the legislation, school districts throughout the country were forced to establish FBA procedures and identify or prepare personnel who could conduct FBAs and prescribe behavioral support plans based on those assessments. School districts essentially had two choices: develop professional expertise in functional assessment for their school personnel, or secure the services of behavior analysts. Much of the initial efforts aimed at conducting school based FBA modeled the type of applied behavior analysis typically reported in studies in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis with subjects with developmental disabilities (DD) (Gresham, 2003). Implemented practices in the schools relied less on research than on the cottage industry of FBA that grew out of legal necessity (Sasso, Conroy, Sticher and Fox, 2001). Increasingly then, developing forms of FBA and function guided behavioral intervention were proposed and evaluated in the research with greater rigor. At the same time, legal analysis of case law emerging since IDEA 1997 provided support for many aspects of what experts in the area would consider best practices. Etscheidt (2006) reviewed all cases from 1997 to present in which the development of a behavior intervention plan was the subject of the appeal. Several themes emerged from this review including the notion that, in students with IDEA eligibilities, behavior plans that include positive behavioral supports must be developed when behavioral needs are evident and the child's learning (or the learning of others) is impacted. …