1. Functional assessment is geared towards determining how environmental events affect how people behave. It also attempts to obtain information with regards to the functions a behavior has on a person. Functional assessment has a role in intervening and preventing behavior difficulties and explaining why people especially children would behave differently from others. It is an assessment that gives perspectives on the origin of desirable and undesirable behavior and also how to strengthen behavior. It is also a reinforcement tool that strengthens the interventions that have been suggested to solve behavior problems.
2. There are two categories of functions that include positive reinforcement and secondly negative reinforcement. Examples of positive reinforcement include the social positive reinforcement, tangible reinforcement, and automatic positive reinforcement. With regards to negative reinforcement the examples include social negative reinforcement and automatic negative response.
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3. Each function has a specific real-life example. Social positive reinforcement includes behaviors that depict attention such as sad facial expression, turning the head, or attempts to soothe. A tangible reinforcement may be represented with a child throwing tantrums until he gets the most favorite meal. In automatic positive response, the representations of the behavior might come via sucking the thumb as a result of physical stimulation by the mouth. Behaviors such as terminating a phone call to end a conversation is an example of a social negative reinforcement whiles an uncomfortable condition such as feeling dizzy might form the negative automatic reinforcement.
4. Misbehavior can be motivated by the escape or the social negative response. For example when students in a classroom are engaging in a behavior that is likely to disrupt the order in the class, they might be sent out of the classroom by the teacher. Therefore, the implication will be that the students will experience an escape from the teacher’s demands hence leading to another cycle of misbehavior.
5. The topography is only focused on describing the type of behavior that has occurred. It answers the question ‘’what’’ with regards to the behavior in question. A child might hurt themselves then the behavior is called ‘’self-injury’’. When doing so, this is described as the topography of the behavior. The function on the other hand attempts to highlight the reason the behavior occurred. It tries to answer the question ‘’why’’ with regards to the behavior in question. Between topography and function, function should be given priority due to the fact that it interrogates why a behavior occurs as opposed to topography which only attempts to describe the behavior.
6. Functional behavior assessment (FBA) has a certain relationship with intervention and treatment. FBA is determined by analyzing the reason or purpose of behavior and how the environment impacts the behavior, intervention, and treatment techniques are focused on preventing undesirable behavior. This is done by altering antecedent variables, altering consequent variables, and finally teaching the alternative behaviors. Therefore both FBA and treatment and intervention techniques focus on assessment of behavior, analyzing reasons, and getting the necessary remedies for undesirable behavior.
7. Functional analysis is interpreted by the visual inspection of a graph to determine the conditions under which the behaviors occurred. In the play condition, the problem behavior is expected to be low due to lack of the motivating operations for the problem. The analysis is made by checking the relationship between each type of function and the result it has on the problem behavior. For example, when there is an elevated problem behavior, the likely suggestion is that the behavior is taken care of by the positive reinforcement.
8. The first advantage of functional analysis is that it gives a clear demonstration of the variables that affect a problem behavior. They can also serve as a standard for scientific evidence that can be used in research for the solving of problems. Limitations of the functional analysis include the fact that it can strengthen the undesirable behavior to levels that cannot be accepted. It can also result in the behavior acquiring new functions hence giving wrong perceptions. There are certain behaviors, especially those serious ones which cannot be analyzed using the function analysis method. The analysis is also affected by the environment in which it is carried out to give the best results.
9. The descriptive functional behavior assessment involves a direct observation of behavior. The major difference it has with the functional assessment is that observations are made under conditions that are occurring naturally. Secondly, unlike the functional assessment, the descriptive functional behavior assessment analyzes problems of behavior in the events that are not arranged in a systematic manner.
10. The different descriptive methods that are described in the chapter include the ABC continuous recording where the observer is involved in taking account of the occurrences of the targeted problem and the designated environmental events in a specific period. The ABC narrative recording is different from the continuous recording as data of choice is collected only when the behaviors of interest are observed. The recording done is open-ended and more importantly, less time-consuming. In scatterplots, the target behavior occurs more often.
11. The indirect functional assessment employs the use of structured interviews, rating scales, checklists, and questionnaires among others to obtain information from people having knowledge about a person exhibiting behavioral problems. It is different from descriptive functional assessment because it does not involve the person exhibiting the problem but only observant.
12. Advantages of using indirect FBA include the fact that one can acquire valuable information that might be vital in subsequent assessment and also the fact that it gives a more objective assessment. It is vital in developing hypothesis concerning variables important in behavior analysis. Disadvantages include the fact that it suffers from recall bias and the reliability of the information can sometimes be questioned.
13. The steps involved in conducting an FBA include gathering information. This can be done using indirect or descriptive methods. Secondly, interpret information and formulate a hypothesis concerning the problem behavior. The third step involves testing the hypothesis using functional analysis and lastly develops an intervention option that is based on problem behavior.
