Maintenance and Generalization in Functional Behavior Assessment/Behavior Intervention Plan Literature

Abstract

School practitioners increasingly use functional behavior assessments to design behavior intervention plans when students engage in challenging behavior that is not improved by classroom management or standard interventions. Behavior intervention plans should aim to produce behavior change that maintains across time and generalizes to relevant contexts. In applied terms, maintenance occurs when a behavior continues to occur after the intervention is fully or partially withdrawn; generalization occurs when a learner engages in a trained behavior in an untrained context. This review examined the current status of maintenance and generalization in the school-based FBA/BIP literature and found that many school-based researchers continue to implement the intervention during the maintenance phase or in the generalization contexts. Implications for practice and directions for future research are discussed.