Functional Behavior Assessment Report

Functional Behavior Assessment Report (REMEMBER YOU WILL HAVE A COVER P

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 this assessment, Willie attended the school’s summer school program for children entering first grade from Kindergarten, which ran from June 6 to July 1, 2022, from 7:45 AM to 11:45 AM daily. Willie was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) at age 3 and receives special education services within his general education classroom throughout the school day.

The FBA utilized both indirect and direct assessment methods to hypothesize the function of Willie’s challenging behaviors. The Functional Assessment Screening Tool (FAST) was completed on June 19, 2022, by Willie’s general education teacher, Mrs. D’Angelo, through a structured interview via Zoom. Additionally, ABC data were collected by the classroom teaching assistant from June 13 to June 24, 2022, covering six episodes of target behavior in various settings including the classroom, hallway, gym, playground, lunchroom, and arts and music rooms.

The target behavior identified was “tantrum,” characterized by loud screaming and crying, often accompanied by falling to the floor and kicking. The tantrums occurred approximately 2-3 times per week. During these episodes, Willie sometimes kicked others, but staff believed kicks were unintentional, given his flailing behavior during tantrums. For this assessment, “tantrum behavior” was defined to include episodes with screaming or crying coupled with falling to the floor. Data showed that incidents of screaming alone, crying alone, or falling without vocalizations were not counted as tantrums.

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The FAST results indicated that Willie’s tantrum behavior is most likely serving a social function—either gaining attention or gaining access to tangible items. The FAST did not support an automatic function such as sensory stimulation or pain attenuation, as Mrs. D’Angelo did not perceive the behavior as automatic. The FAST results, based on maternal recollection and perception, suggested that the behavior is most likely reinforced by social consequences (Boutot, 2020).

The ABC-R data further clarified the environmental variables associated with Willie’s tantrums. Ms. Koepke, the classroom teaching assistant, recorded detailed ABC data over nine days, focusing on antecedents, behaviors, and consequences. Analysis revealed that the most common antecedents were denied access to preferred items, peer taking items Willie wanted, or being told to put away toys. The predominant consequence was staff attention, often paired with offering alternative items or “first-then” prompts, which temporarily reduced the tantrum behavior.

Specifically, the data suggested that Willie’s tantrums function primarily to obtain access to tangibles. The behavior escalated or continued when he was denied a desired object or activity, and then ceased after staff offered him the item or an alternative access. The pattern indicated that tantrums serve to manipulate the environment to secure or maintain access to preferred items or activities, consistent with a tangible function hypothesis.

Functional Analysis Procedures

To systematically test the hypothesized function of access to tangibles, a functional analysis (FA) will be conducted using controlled comparison conditions. The procedures involve four conditions: tangible, escape, attention, and play, each designed to identify the specific reinforcement maintaining Willie’s tantrums.

The tangible condition involves offering Willie access to his top preferred items for five minutes, then instructing him to put the items away; if tantrums occur primarily when access is denied and cease when access is granted, this supports a tangible function. The escape condition involves presenting a demand, such as writing sight words, and observing whether tantrums escalate when the demand is placed, then stop when the demand is removed or waived. The attention condition provides minimal adult attention during a preferred task, with the expectation that tantrums will increase when attention is withheld and decrease when attention is given. The play condition offers free access to preferred toys and social interaction without demands; low rates of tantrums in this condition would suggest a non-automatic, non-social reinforcement function, while high rates would suggest an automatic reinforcement function.

All FA conditions will be conducted in Willie’s classroom across four sessions each, alternating conditions to prevent carryover effects. Data will be collected via frequency counts of tantrum episodes per session and graphed to analyze the pattern of behavior relative to each condition.

Expected Hypothetical Results

Based on the ABC data and FAST results, it is hypothesized that Willie’s tantrums will most likely occur during the tangible condition, showing high frequency when access to preferred items is denied, and significantly decrease when access is facilitated. Conversely, tantrums should be less frequent during the play condition, supporting the conclusion that the function is primarily tangible access. If the FA confirms this pattern, interventions will focus on teaching functional communication skills to replace tantrums with appropriate requests for desired items, and implementing consistent reinforcement for appropriate alternative behavior.

References

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