Steps to A Functional Behavioral Assessment

An FBA is conducted to determine why certain people behave in a certain manner, then come up with intervention strategies. The first step is establishing a team that will be used in providing varied perspectives on the behavior in question (Moreno, 2011). This step is beneficial to the behavioral analyst as the selection of a good team will ensure the group should consist of individuals that have witnessed the behavior for a long period of time to inform the assessment. The next step is defining the target behavior where members of the team identify the interfering behavior that is most problematic and how long it has been going on (Moreno, 2011). This step will help the behavioral analyst come to a conclusion as the realization of how long the behavior has manifested will inform their analysis. The next step deals with collecting baseline data from several sources to understand the behavior (Moreno, 2011). This step helps by informing the analyst by providing data on the interfering behavior. 

The next step deals with developing a hypothesis statement basing it on the assessment results while also describing the behavior in sufficient detail. This step helps the behavior analyst by giving them the function the behavior serves, and the setting comes to a conclusion (Moreno, 2011). The next step deals with testing the hypothesis, which helps the analysist come to a conclusion by determining the postulated hypothesis. The next step deals with developing interventions for the behavior, which helps the analyst come to a conclusion by offering them new skills and ways to modify the behavior (Moreno, 2011). The final step is evaluating the effectiveness of the plan, which helps the behavior analyst assess the effectiveness of the intervention for the behavior (Moreno, 2011). If I had to choose a step to conduct in the FBA, I would select the final step of evaluating the effectiveness of the intervention. This step helps to assess how effective the assessment was thus tying everything together and informs the analyst whether they have been successful in their assessment. 

Reference  

Moreno, G. (2011). Addressing challenging behaviours in the general education setting: conducting a teacher-based Functional Behavioural Assessment (FBA). Education 3-13, 39(4), 363-371.