Positive Behavior Support, Part 2: Function of Behavior

To understand how to create an effective behavior plan* a crucial piece is to understand why a behavior occurs.  Without this piece of information, accurately determined, a behavior plan will simply not work.

It is more complex than it might seem to figure out why a child does what they do, obvious answers can often be wrong.  The IEP team needs to know how and what to teach as a replacement behavior that meets the same need as the problem behavior.

As a parent, your input into this process is vital because you know your child better than anyone.  

It becomes very helpful to the IEP team, and to your child, to know why a behavior occurs, it can greatly reduce the emotional response that many of these behaviors can generate in caregivers.

Once you know why something is happening, it's much easier to emotionally accept it.  You can start analyzing and problem solving instead of reacting.

See the transcript for links to citations and resources.

* Note: you may find that behavior plans can have somewhat different names such as  Positive Behavior Support Plan (PBSP), a Behavior Intervention Plan (BIP) or a Behavior Support Plan (BSP)

Thanks to soundimage.org for the free access to the AI generated music used in this podcast (https://soundimage.org/) 

Transcript

Determining the Function of a Behavior

Today I’d like to talk about the next step in creating an effective behavior plan.

Just a note: to best understand this episode, I would recommend listening to Positive Behavior Support Basics first.

From the first episode of the behavior series, you learned that after we have accurately identified what a behavior looks like, we need to identity why the child is doing it.  The reasons included, attention, escape, sensory, tangibles and power and control.  

But to do this we need first to collect data.  Accurate data collection is a theme emphasized throughout this series.  To determine accurately what is happening with a child data collection has to be done in an organized, systematic manner.  Anything less risks the IEP team getting lots of things wrong 

There are many ways to collect data, but its accuracy depends on having the training and experience to both select data collection methods, but also to be observant enough to detect what are sometimes subtle clues.

Let’s look again at John, who we met in the first program of this series. He is our 3rd grader with ADHD who is qualified for special education services under the category or Other Health Impaired. John frequently calls out questions and answers in class without raising his hand.  This is a good example to use as most of us can agree on what it looks like.  But something we call the ABCs is often needed to frame the way we look at the behavior and to help classify it.

Let’s re-visit the ABCs, an acronym that stands for antecedent, behavior and consequence.  Let’s look how it would work for data collection about John’s hand raising issues.

The antecedent looks for what happens before John calls out an answer.  What is happening the class?  Is there a lot of noise or movement going on?  Are other students excited about answering?  What is John’s affect?  Does he seem excited or agitated?  What time of day is it?  Did lunch or recess just end?

The behavior that we are targeting, John calls out instead of raising his hand has to be defined as to exactly “what does it look like”?  We need to know the specifics of the action, does John rise out of his seat, does he say, “ooh, ooh” and so on.

And the last piece is the consequence, which is what occurs as a result of the behavior.  Consequence as it’s used here is not necessarily a negative thing, it is simply what happens, does John get adult attention, or…?

Okay, now let’s go back to the data we have collected.  By using the information we can make a reasonable presumption as to the function of the behavior. 

In John’s case, unless the data indicated something else, we can assume, for our purposes, that he needs attention.  But the function of a behavior can be difficult to determine and even if it looks like something, don’t assume, use data!

All of these factors go into the assessment of the behavior so they can be considered and used to help shape the behavior plan that will come from this. If a more comprehensive look at the reason for the behavior is needed, we look to process called a Functional Behavior Assessment. 

Starting here, the following comes from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6411551/  (2)

A typical FBA (Functional Behavior Assessment) consists of two or three components. 

The first component, an indirect assessment, involves interviewing stakeholders, the people who care and are responsible for the individual with the problem behavior (e.g., the individual themselves, parents, teachers, other professionals). 

This can be done via structured or unstructured interviews, the purpose of which is to gather information on the type of problem behavior occurring, when the problem behavior is occurring, what events occur prior to the onset of the problem behavior, and what events follow the occurrence of the problem behavior. 

The second component, descriptive assessment, consists of observations of the individual in his or her natural environment without any manipulation of environmental variables. During these observations, data on antecedent events, target behavior, and consequences can be collected and used for a descriptive analysis.

End of quote.

There is another way to collect the data, which is by using a Functional Analysis (FA).  This process manipulates the environment to see how a student reacts.  It can be used as part of an FBA but is not normally used outside of a clinical environment.  (2)

So, let’s go back to John.  We have concluded that he is expressing the need for attention through his actions. I’ve described some of the technical ways that to determine functions. However, the decision is reached as to what a behavior is communicating, it is critical to the success of any BIP that is written that the function be accurately determined. (1)

If there is an incorrect identification of the function of behavior, there is little chance any BIP will work.  That’s because the next topic we will discuss in this series, replacement behaviors, will not be in line with the child’s needs.

If we thought John was trying to escape instead of get attention, a response to escape is going to be very different than a response to the need for attention.  Imagine the teacher telling John to take a break in the back of the classroom, which could be a response to the need for escape, but John would consider being sent to an isolated area of the classroom as punishment, for sure.

Okay, in the classroom, and the teacher or aide is working with John, what good does it do to know what the function of the behavior is?  A determination has already been done, all they have to do is follow the plan, right? Wrong.  They need to know all of the parts of the BIP, including what the assessments found. 

Think of it this way.  I know you’ve heard the stories of people blindly following driving navigation programs.  There was a recent one where one of the navigation programs tried to get people around a bad accident site between Las Vegas and LA.  The system led people to a dead-end dirt road, but it didn’t end for about 4 miles.  There were cars backed up for the entire 4 miles because people followed other people, who followed a map program.

That’s what following a BIP is like if you don’t have some understanding of how the whole thing works and the pieces that go into it.  There was a lot of pretty dense information in these few minutes, so take a look at the links when you have a chance.  They don’t exactly read like a novel you read at the beach, but there is valuable information to help you learn.

As mentioned, in our next episode we will be looking at what replacement behaviors are all about, we hope you join us.

At the end of every behavior series episode, as always, here is the link to Vanderbilt University’s IRIS Center that focuses on the issue we have been discussing.  As I also mention each time is that I have been using this outstanding resource for many years and they continue to provide the clearest, most understandable explanations of PBS I have ever found.  Use them to answer questions you have about anything we talk about and more.

https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/fba/cresource/q2/p08/

 Links to Resources

1.)  A very good and clear discussion of FBA/FAs and some of the problems that arise from the practice

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3546636/

 2.) An explanation of an FBA/FA

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6411551/

3.) A discussion of different techniques from a BCBA

https://marybarbera.com/autism-behavioral-strategies-fba-fa-aba/