Reference no: EM133190914
Functional Assessment Plan Instructions
Tommy Smith is in Ms. England's 4thgrade class. Tommy has been engaging in disruptive behaviors, which include humming loudly, putting his head in the table, refusing to participate, and throwing books. Lately, the problem behaviors have increased especially since the class content has gotten more difficult. Tommy puts his head down when Ms. England covers math problems or content related to science and the behaviors escalate from there after instructions to complete an activity or assignment. His behavior is tolerable on some days but his tantrums can escalate quickly. Ms. England contacted you, the school psychologist, and informed you of the behaviors Tommy has been presenting and her concerns about the disruptions affecting the other students in the class.
Conducting a functional assessment before developing a treatment for a problem behavior provides a clear understanding of what antecedents and reinforcers maintain the problem behavior. Based on report of problem behaviors by Ms. England, write out a detailed functional assessment plan containing the following items:
Summary of Referral and Request to Assess Problem Behavior
Provide a quick summary (in your own words) of the information above regarding Tommy's behavior and Ms. England's concerns in your own words. Typically, when putting information together for the behavioral team, you would include notes related to the initial call made by the teacher and anyone else involved.
Behavioral Interviews
Identify two individuals you will interview to gather more information about Tommy's behavior. Discuss why the two individuals are important to interview.
Come up with a minimum of five interview questions you plan to ask in the interviews. Make sure the questions will provide answers related to the behaviors, antecedents, consequences, and any other variables.
Hypothesis about the ABC of the Problem
Discuss what information you need to define Tommy's disruptive behaviors.
Define one possible eventand one situation that predict occurrences of his behaviors.
Identify the possible function of the undesirable behaviors. What consequences maintain the behaviors?
Identify and discuss two possible reinforcers.
What alternative behavior could Tommy use instead of the disruptive behavior?
Formulate a hypothesis of what could be contributing to Tommy's behavior based on the information provided by Ms. England.
Observational Assessment
Identify and discuss the setting you plan to be in to observe Tommy's behavior. How will you control for reactivity?
Identify which one of the three methods you will use to capture data (descriptive method, checklist method, or interval recording method). Discuss why you will this specific method.
How will you use the data collected to determine the ABC of the problem behavior?
Functional Analysis
You plan to use hypothesis testing. Identify one reinforcer for Tommy's behavior, one test condition, and one control condition to test the hypothesis that a particular reinforcing consequence is maintain the problem behavior.
Identify which baseline design you will use to capture the data.
Functional Intervention
You plan to implement an intervention to teach Tommy an alternative behavior that is more functional then the disruptive behavior he is currently engaging in.
Identify an alternative behavior Tommy could use that would be reinforcing (should be the same one as you listed above.)
You plan to us Behavioral Skills Training (BST) procedures to teach Tommy the alternative behavior. Briefly discuss how you intent to use instructions, modeling, rehearsal, and feedback in the training.
Discuss the benefits of Tommy engaging in a more functional alternative behavior compared to the disruptive behaviors.