As both parents and professionals, we often come face to face with problematic behavior that requires attention. The behavior’s purpose is often investigated via a functional behavior assessment, often known as an FBA.
An FBA formulates a hypothesis about the factors driving behavior using methods such as interviews, rating scales, and direct observations (e.g., the function). These approaches often allow us to conclude the process (or purpose) of the behavior in question and the treatments that may be used to reduce the occurrence of the behavior.
A functional analysis, also known as an FA, is helpful. The FA is a process that organizes certain situations as determined by the four functions of behavior. Suppose we can establish which circumstance results in the most frequent occurrence of a behavior. In that case, we may have higher confidence that the behavior fulfills the intended purpose or function.
Various Conditions in Functional Analysis
Function analysis comes with the following five conditions:
- Alone
- Attention
- Demand
- Play or Control
- Tangible
Alone
A youngster is left unattended, and there are no repercussions for their actions presented. The method will be adjusted accordingly when someone’s conduct threatens themselves or others.
Attention
Attention is paid each time the behavior that is being targeted takes place. It could just be some excellent attention. Oh no, what could be wrong? Attracting unwelcome attention, such as “Stop doing that right now!”
Demand
An opportunity to escape the demands is presented when the desired behavior is shown. Most of the time, a break is time-limited (e.g., 15 or 30 seconds).
Play or Control
The child is given access to all known reinforces simultaneously, and no expectations are imposed on the child. This condition is the standard, or control, against which all other conditions are evaluated and compared.
Tangible
Access to a physical object or activity is granted whenever the desired behavior is shown. This is done consistently.
Working on Functional Analysis
Functional Analysis is practical because it works by temporarily rewarding the behavior that is being targeted or troublesome. Even though this may seem unsettling and unhelpful, it enables us to convincingly establish which functions (or outcomes) the target behavior is most sensitive to as a significant benefit.
This is of utmost significance when a particular habit has proved challenging to address. Compared to the baseline or control (play) condition, the rate of behavior in the four experimental circumstances was significantly different.
Since there is no motive for challenging behavior in the play/control condition, it is reasonable to anticipate that the rates of conduct will be at their lowest. The findings of several studies indicate that there is no long-term damage caused by the short periods of encouraging problematic behavior that is required in functional Analysis.
Comparison between Functional Analysis and Functional Behavior Assessment
As an integral element of the FBA process, academics and practitioners often use Functional Analysis.
An FA is not required to be included in an FBA, although doing so might be advantageous in some situations. When doing research, a functional analysis (FA) is often used to establish that a particular function drives specific behavior; this is typically done as part of the evaluation of some therapy.
In clinical settings, functional assessments may be used when the findings from the collection of behavior data are inconclusive or when behavior is severe and calls for an accurate diagnosis of its function before therapy can begin.
Functional Analysis Methodologies
Analog functional Analysis, sometimes known as “standard” available Analysis, was the basis for the first research conducted on functional Analysis and was created by Iwata et al., 1994. The conditions in an analog FA each endure for 15 minutes, and there are numerous repetitions of each situation. This continues to be the norm in the vast majority of studies. Modifications of the analog functional Analysis have been examined in the literature as a possible solution to this problem, which prevents FA from being used in specific contexts.
The first is a brief FA, which offers circumstances for a shorter amount of time to establish the probable factors of behavior that sustain it. The situations with the most significant rates of issue behavior are then contrasted to a reversal, in which a suitable answer is encouraged, and challenging conduct is disregarded. The conditions with the highest rates of problem behavior have been highlighted in bold. It is possible to utilize this fast reversal to control whether or not there is a functional link between the problematic behavior and the reinforcement (e.g., attention, tangible item, escape, etc.)
A trial-based financial advisor (FA) will employ brief, separate trials scattered across the client’s regular schedule. The client spends one minute being subjected to the evocative situation (for example, being ignored during the “attention” condition). The implementer will reinforce the client for one minute if the client participates in troublesome conduct. The comparison between the frequency of the behavior in the first trial (for example, ignoring) and the lack of conduct in the second trial (for example, providing attention) is used to establish the function.
In conclusion, a latency FA analyzes response latency (or time until behavior). After the undesirable behavior has occurred and the reinforcement has been given, the evocative circumstances are removed from the environment. When determining the most probable purpose of the behavior, researchers analyze the amount of time that passes between different situations before seeing the first problematic behavior.
Alternative approaches to FA methodology make it possible to conduct different condition durations and measurements. These lengths and sizes may either be shorter than those used in analog FA or can be incorporated into regular activities. Certain institutions, including schools, do not have the means or people available to do analog functional evaluations. Using these variants allows practitioners working in these situations to be flexible while preserving the internal rigor of experimental research.
Conducting The Functional Analysis
Only trained experts or professionals working under the supervision of qualified professionals should carry out FAs (e.g., BCBA, Psychologist, etc.). If you believe that an FA is required, contacting one of these specialists and providing them with all the pertinent information may assist in determining whether or not an FA is needed.
Should this be the case, it will be necessary to get adequate informed permission and particular instructions for calculating the number of conditions and the manner of data collection. In general, an FA may be deemed necessary if traditional indirect and observational measures have not been able to positively identify a function for the behavior and generate an effective behavior intervention plan.
This is because traditional indirect and observational measures rely on inferences rather than direct evidence. One further motivation may be for research reasons, and that would be to identify a function conclusively.
Criticism associated with FA methodology
Even while FA is often used in research and clinical contexts, there isn’t a universal consensus among specialists about whether or not an FA is required in an FBA. Because previous studies have shown that techniques of direct evaluation, such as the collection of ABC data, help establish the function of behavior, it is possible that carrying out a functional analysis is not worth the additional work required.
However, research on the efficacy of FBAs, in general, has revealed that FBAs that include an FA in the process have more substantial intervention effects than FBAs that rely only on indirect and observational approaches.
Examples Of Function Analysis
This is only a high-level summary of functional Analysis, and it is entirely hypothetical; thus, you should not try to replicate it. It is presented to provide a rough overview of how Analysis may be carried out; however, you should never try to conduct anything like this without professional monitoring the whole evaluation. The tenacity of this document is to provide an example of how Analysis might be carried out.
Please be noted that preceding descriptive evaluations would usually be done before completing a functional analysis. These assessments would include direct observation of the client and interviews and questionnaires filled out by parents, staff members, and other relevant parties.
The information acquired via these first approaches will enable practitioners to construct a hypothesis about the function of the behavior, which will then lead to the development of the functional Analysis.
In addition, the aims of the Analysis would be discussed with all applicable stakeholders (such as parents, employees, ethics boards, and so on), and informed permission would be acquired from all involved parties.
Client, Behavior, And Design
We will use Iwata et al. definition .’s of “head banging,” which is “audible or forceful contact of the head against a stationary object,” to determine what “headbanging” means for this hypothetical functional Analysis, in which the client is an autistic boy aged eight who engages in “headbanging” (self-injury).
This investigation will use what is known as an “alternating design,” also known as a “multi-element design.” This means that for each particular session or day, the next session will include entirely another form of manipulation.
Because each form of manipulation will need its session or day, the design is called an “alternating design” because the manipulations would “alternate” amongst one another.
Functional Analysis may accomplish this throughout hourly sessions, two-hourly sessions, half-day sessions, etc., even if we alternate each manipulation over consecutive days.
Attention Condition
The practitioner pays attention to the youngster each time he hits his head on the first day and notes the total number of times the boy hits his head during the whole day.
This state would be referred to as the “contingent attention” condition if the behavior was prevalent. In contrast, if this condition were present, it would imply that the behavior’s purpose is to attract other people’s attention.
During this condition, there were nine separate instances of head banging.
Alone Condition
The youngster would be monitored while on his own; minimal levels of “stimulation” would be available, meaning there would be no practitioner, teacher, parent, toys, or anything else. A one-way mirror or CCTV might be used to record the number of times someone smacks their head.
This situation would be referred to be the “alone” condition. If the behavior were seen often when the subject was in this state, it would provide evidence that the behavior is being shown as a result of “automatic” reinforcement.
Automatic reinforcement may be “self-pleasing” or “self-stimulating” and does not involve another person. This is the most straightforward approach to describe mechanical reinforcement and how it works (e.g., reading a book). You may be perplexed about how head banging could be a self-pleasuring behavior, but this can occur for various reasons. For instance, headbanging could provide some form of internal self-stimulation.
There is one incident of headbanging that takes place under this state.
Free Play Condition
On the third day, a recording is made of the frequency of headbanging while the kid is engaged in free play. This essentially means that the child plays games or with toys of their choosing with the practitioner present.
The “free play” condition controls the other conditions since it gives the client what he wants, makes no demands on him, and pays attention to him even when he is not headbanging. This condition is also called “free play” by researchers.
Escape Condition
After the third day, the practitioner stopped running any academic programs whenever the youngster participated in headbanging. This continued until the fifth day.
This situation is referred to as the “contingent escape” condition. If the behavior were prevalent in this state, it would imply that the purpose of the behavior was to avoid having to accomplish academic responsibilities. In essence, he is using the headbanging behavior to convince the instructor to cease requiring him to carry out academic duties.
There are no instances of headbanging occurring under this state.
Upcoming Numbers
The order of these four situations would be randomized over many days, and during the experiment, data would be continually logged on the number of times participants hit their heads.
After that, the data will be displayed on a graph so that it can be visually analyzed to determine whether there is a probable causal relationship between the modifications and the frequency of the behavior.
As can be observed, the behavior happens more often when the practitioner pays attention to the kid as opposed to other conditions, such as when the client is left alone (the alone condition), when they are playing freely (the free play condition), or when teaching sessions are terminated (escape condition).
The results imply that the purpose of the behavior is to attract attention from the practitioner. As you can probably see by now, the goal of the behavior is to get attention from the practitioner.
Conclusion
Functional Analysis may give academics and practitioners a tool to discover what factors contribute to maintaining problematic behavior.
Although an FA may not be required in every circumstance, it is a tool that can be applied when other techniques of behavior evaluation do not provide the answers sought.
Contact a specialist to ask for further examination if you suspect a functional assessment is required with a client, student, or kid.