Ep. 38: Crafting Effective Hypotheses and Summary Statements in FBAs - Part 6 of the FBA Mini-Series

Welcome back to the Misfit Behaviorist Podcast! 🎙️ In this episode, we continue our exploration of Functional Behavior Assessments (FBAs) with a focus on the critical data collection process. We dive deep into how to effectively gather, analyze, and interpret data to create meaningful behavior intervention plans (BIPs). Join hosts Audra Jensen and Sami Brown as they share their insights on navigating the complexities of data collection in special education settings.

Key Takeaways:
✔️ Understanding Data Collection: Learn how to refine your data gathering techniques to focus on relevant behaviors.
✔️ Hypothesis Development: Discover how to form clear, actionable hypotheses based on collected data.
✔️ Operational Definitions: Importance of defining target behaviors to ensure consistency and clarity in observations.
✔️ Collaborative Decision-Making: Engage with your team to determine whether a BIP is necessary based on the data collected.
✔️ Emotional Impact: Acknowledge the emotional aspects of working with students and the importance of mental health in educational settings.

Resources Mentioned:
✔️ Visual Aids: Check out the graphics shared in our Facebook group for better understanding.
✔️ Summary Statement freebie: Grab this here but also don't forget to join the FB group for more resources and collaboration!

Join Us Next Week!
We'll wrap up this mini-series by discussing how to implement findings and make informed decisions regarding BIPs. Don't miss out!

Connect with Us:
Insta: @themisfitbehaviorists
Facebook Group: Join our community for additional resources and discussions! 

Don’t forget to subscribe to the Misfit Behaviorist podcast for more insights and tips on behavior support and interventions. 🚀

Next Episode Teaser: Tune in next week as we talk about the final decision and meeting for the FBA! Then we move on to BIP discussions! 

Join the Facebook group for collaboration and freebies: The Misfit Behaviorists

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• Audra | ABA in School
• Caitlin | Beltran’s Behavior Basics
• Sami | B.A.S.S.

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Transcript

Audra: [00:00:00] We want to create a hypothesis. We want to create something very succinct, a statement that kind of captures everything so that then if we do go on with a BIP that we can measure that change.

Intro: Welcome to the Misfit Behaviorist podcast mini series. This round, join your hosts Audra Jensen and Sami Brown, here to bring you fun and functional advice for creating and implementing behavior plans. Let's get started. 

Audra: Hi, welcome back to the Misfit Behaviors Podcast, where we're continuing our series on creating FBA and BIPs. And today we want to talk about that hypothesis, operational definition, kind of the final stage before you get to the meeting and the decision, which is what we're going to talk about next time. At this point, we've gathered all the data, we've made our observations, we've had our interviews, we've taken some initial data, then we've really tweaked the data so we feel like we have a good measure and an objective view of what the behavior is, when it's happening, where it's happening. And we have that baseline data that we can now [00:01:00] decide, first of all, we're going to decide if a behavior plan is warranted or something else. And then if we do move forward, if we add strategies, we have some clear baseline data to see if we're making meaningful change.

Sami: I got a question right out of the gates here, and I'm sorry to put you on the spot, but this has come up before. Have you ever, in your experience, gone through the process of developing an FBA that did not warrant a BIP. 

Audra: Oh, yeah, several times. I think that is a great question, because I think it's a misnomer that if you're creating an FBA, that means you're doing a BIP. And that doesn't mean that. An FBA really is just the analysis of the behavior. And we may find, as we've gone through the process, it could be a number of different reasons we decide not to do a BIP. It could be that the behavior was transient. Maybe it was something that just popped up and we thought was going to be long term. But over the course of the last six weeks of us gathering this data, it's improved enough that it doesn't need to warrant a more extensive behavior plan, or we may look at the behavior and we go, you know what, it [00:02:00] is affecting this student's learning or learning around him, but I think we can do some tweaks around what he's already getting or what classroom that she's in or add some classroom strategies here or maybe they just need some counseling, and we need to recommend that.

Or, It could be that we're like, this is out of our field of expertise and we need to refer out to somebody else to do a more extensive plan. So there's a lot of different reasons you may choose at the end of the process, when you come together as a team and you're sitting around the table and you're talking about it, you're talking about everything we figured out.

Do we go on and create now a behavior plan that is, you know, a legal document that attaches to the IEP, is really important. It's more extensive. We're really trying to figure out how we can make meaningful change. And if we don't need to go down that route and do it less strategically and less cumbersome on the staff that's a way that we can do it. 

Sami: Or like you had said is during the process, which once you've gotten that signed consent and you've got what 35 school days to [00:03:00] complete the full FBA, which is the identification process of why the behaviors are occurring, the full assessment, there may have been a myriad of things that have occurred. Maybe they've gotten outside supports through pediatrician medical doctor intervention are now on a medication trial that's changed significantly the direction or the course of that child's behavior and so therefore you can make a decision. You're not going to write a BIP based on the child takes their medication, so therefore you're not writing a behavior intervention plan. Also we've had it before where teachers specifically during the process has gotten to know themselves as well as that specific student so much better that they've literally gotten to this place of "this is what I need to do for the student" and then they've just naturally done it and so the behavior itself became under control. And so then you're deciding as a team of you know what? We want to make sure that since those supports had such a significant impact on the behavior that we're developing that behavior intervention plan to document [00:04:00] that and have it attached because if that student moves to Hawaii next year or in the middle of the school year, that next school district has that information of what's working or what works.

Audra: I think that's a really good point, too. And like I mentioned last week that somebody had posted in our Misfits group about, sometimes I create an FBA and it says what I'm already doing. Well, it may be that you just need to create that FBA or, and, or BIP so that maybe you're doing everything that needs to be done. So that student, if they do move on to something that the next team knows what was working and, and is, is legally obligated to perform those same tasks to help the student be successful there. So that's a really good point as well. 

Sami: And it's important to note that that behavior intervention plan should be reviewed annually at the IEP or prior to to see if there's changes that need to be made. I just had someone reach out to me and basically it's been years and now this student has transferred back into the district and they're still holding the original behavior intervention plan that I wrote three years ago [00:05:00] and it's like, you can't, I mean, you've got a starting point, yes, but you're basically looking at kind of starting that process again, especially if it hasn't been re reviewed. 

Audra: Yeah, that's a really good point too. So, at this point now, we want to create that. We want to synthesize all that information. We want to create a hypothesis. We want to create something very succinct, a statement that kind of captures everything so that then if we do go on with a BIP that we can measure that change. And so we're going to talk a little bit about that summary statement that has everything in it really outlines it's clear, it's measurable, it's observable, it describes the behavior, what needs to happen and it stresses, we need to stress that importance of having that baseline data, we talking about frequency, the duration, the intensity, so that we can have a statement and everybody's on board that we have all this data, but now we have one simple way to say it.

Sami: It's also so that everyone's on the same page of knowing what's the target behavior that we're looking to change and that it's not all of the original measurement of all the different types of behavior that the student was participating [00:06:00] in. Like, when we had talked about the red, yellows and greens, it's that target, that specific behavior.

Audra: If you are not watching on YouTube, pop over there and check it out. I created some graphics to kind of help steer some of the conversation we want to have now. So when we're creating an operational definition, we want to make sure we have different pieces of it so that it captures everything for the next person who's reading it. I want to be able to give a summary statement, to somebody who doesn't know the student, doesn't know the situation, that can read it and know exactly what the behavior is, how often it's happening why it's happening, which is the big one. You know, we're talking about functions of behavior, we talk about that a lot. Why that's really more important than what it looks like. So all of these pieces together. 

So I, I created this silly little acronym called CLEAR. So here's the first one, CLARITY. Making sure the definition is clear enough that anyone can understand it when you describe it. That L is for the likelihood of the function. Did I identify how likely that function is? [00:07:00] So, is it likely it's happening because he, the attention seeking or connection seeking, is it likely that it's happening because they're escaping a demand? So, did I identify that function? E being examples of the behavior. Did I include specifics about what the behavior looks like? If I'm going to add, we're trying to reduce meltdowns, I want to know exactly what a meltdown looks like for this student. A, antecedents. Did I identify what triggers are evoking the behavior? When is it happening? What is triggering it to happen? And then R, reporting that data. Did I include the baseline data? So what do you think, Sami? Do you like my CLEAR assessment? 

Sami: I actually do. The C L E A R of your acronym, it's all of the pieces so that no matter who, if that staff member, wins the Powerball and they're gone and now a new person's handed it, they can look at it and they can clearly, see how I did that?

Audra: I like that. 

Sami: They can see, okay, this is, this is the target behavior and this is what it looks like and it's for this purpose and this is, and it happens during this time. Yada [00:08:00] yada. 

Audra: Here's another graphic that I came up with just to give some examples of each of those functions and just to make sure that whatever the summary statement that we create, that we're focused in on what the function of that behavior is because the function, the why behind the behavior that's happening is so important.

So I put together an example of kind of one of each of those functions. I will put this in the Facebook group as well. I won't read them all because they can be long, but I have an example for each of those. And I'd love to hear from everybody. You know, do you have a really good summary statement that you've done recently? I'd love to hear other examples from you. So pop into the Facebook group and let us know some of your great examples. The more we see of these, the more ideas we get from each other, I think that's really helpful. 

Sami: You're going to have an equivalent intervention, so to speak, to meet that need in a pro social manner. And so, if someone's function is based on connection seeking or attention, and you're like, well, I'm going to take away their math homework, you know, I'm going to remove that demand, that doesn't have anything to do with why the behavior [00:09:00] is occurring in the first place. 

Audra: The next one that I created was that summary statement, a pathway of what it looks like, and I think the summary statement that we're, most of us that have gone through BCBA training and education stuff, we've been taught this summary statement graphic, and I think it's in the latest IEP online FBA BIP template as well. All the district that I've worked with, and most of the ones that I know about use IEP online. And so they actually have this pathway in the FBA template now, which is useful. But what I found, and I still from the time that I learned about, you know, back in the.

Late 1900s. Is that weird to think? Late 1900s. No, maybe it was 2005. By the time I got to that point, that's really funny. But I had a hard time understanding what each of the pieces meant, you know, from, yes, I can understand setting event. I can understand antecedent, but once you get into the desired behavior, the replacement behavior, the maintaining consequence for the desired behavior. So I put together this little [00:10:00] graphic. I'll also put it in the Facebook group and in all of my FBA templates and stuff, too, to kind of just define what each of those pieces mean and why it's important. And I think the biggest important thing that I get from this is that when we're creating a behavior plan, we're hoping to get somewhere, right? But we don't need to get everywhere. So, if you have a student whose, baseline is, we've identified this is where they're at, I'm not going to expect this particular student to make it to typically developing expectations next week. I need to think about, yes, it would be great if they could do what all their peers are able to do without this training. I understand that, that's Harvard, but maybe this student, the needs that they have right now is here and I want to them just to get to the community college and I want to fill that same need with something that's less difficult, less socially isolating for them. I'm not going to worry about Harvard right now. I'm just going to go right here. And so I think this in this statement, I think I tried to capture [00:11:00] that in that I need to think about where they're going. I need to make sure that I'm filling the same need that they have getting to community college. We're going to worry about harvard later. As long as we have harvard in mind and it's there and if they hit harvard once in a while We want to make a big celebration about that, But right now we're going to focus just on getting to community college . 

Sami: I love this visual that you have I love this as a document, one because you're not just listing out the problem behaviors, but you've got to make sure that you're looking at what are you teaching? What is the teaching piece that you're doing to replace what they're currently doing to have their needs met? And I think that this document would be really helpful for parents, even as a visual to show that you, yourself, as the professional have done the legwork and what does that culmination mean? So I would be printing this off and I'd be bringing this just to use as an explanation in those meetings.

Audra: The next piece really is figuring out, do we need a BIP? And that [00:12:00] is the big question. Now, I want to emphasize that we don't want to answer that question here in this moment. We want to bring all this data, all this summary, everything that we have, To a meeting so we can have everybody as part of the discussion, we want to make sure we're not leaving out parents in this discussion. So while in my head, for the most part, I know that we do or don't need a BIP at this stage, let's make that final decision, which is what we'll talk about next week when we have the parents and everybody there and we can make that decision. 

Okay, so that's pretty much what we're going to do at this point. We have generated the data, we have created kind of that summary statement, and I think I sometimes mix myself up by using operational definition and summary statement together. So Sami, can you clarify for everybody kind of what the difference is between those two? 

Sami: My perspective would be the operational definition is the how you're defining what the behaviors that you're trying to collect your data for what they look like so that no matter who is collecting that data is [00:13:00] seeing the exact same thing so that your accuracy of your data is there because there's no ambiguity. The summary statement is the culmination on the other side of what is the target behavior that you're looking to make meaningful change and then using that clear your examples of all the significant pieces as that target behavior summary statement. 

Audra: That's a very good, clear definition of the operation definition describing something in a measurable way. The summary statement is kind of that culmination of everything together in one statement. And that's the piece of it that we want to make sure that if we hand this to somebody, both the operational definition and the summary statement, but if we hand it to somebody who's not familiar with the situation, they can identify what that means and they can look out into a classroom and say, ah, I can identify what that is, when it's happening. And I can see how often it's happening within the statement. 

Sami: And it's a good reminder to all of us to use that non technical language because we all work together and we all know in [00:14:00] education all these different acronyms and things and we're so used to using them that then we come to a meeting or to the table or with parents or with other educators who may be newer into the field and this may be their first process of going through an FBA BIP and they don't understand what we're saying because we're saying it in this too technical format.

Audra: If you think about it, the, the term summary statement is perfect. I mean, it really is because then you've captured everything. And so if you're going to go in to talk to parents, that's a great term that we use. And we talk about operational definition, whatever that's for us. But yeah, summary statement. We can understand what that is. So, next week, let's talk about the final decision to are we going forward with the BIP or not? And having that meeting with everybody, making sure everybody's on board and moving forward. So, we will wrap up the FBA portion of our mini series next week.

And then as we decide, whether we're going on or not, then we'll continue on with discussing that as well. 

Intro: Thanks for listening to The Misfit Behaviorists, and be sure to tune in next week for more tips and tricks. Don't [00:15:00] forget to subscribe so you don't miss an episode!