FBA Podcast Handout Sheet

This is the handout for a podcast that I
developed on Functional Behavioral Assessment. You can find the podcast
at: http://collabra2.liu.edu/weblog/andrewlivanis/FBA/

In our previous class we discussed the l_____________________ (or the t______________-t__________ c_________________________), as well as the f_______________________ of behavior.

Let review some of the definitions necessary for these issues:

Antecedents – ________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

Behavior - ________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Consequence - ________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

We refer to a full ABC interaction as a __________ _____________ or a _____________

___________________ __________________.

The more learn units you can identify, the _______________________________________________________________





Consider this example:

What do you think will happen on Wednesday in math class? If algebra is what will be done on Wednesday, _________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

This consequence is one ___________________________________.

However, what should be noted is that the environment is

s__________________________________________ this behavior by

__________________________________________________________

If the e______________ (the teacher in this instance) changed the

a_____________________ (by providing some sort of assistance to Johnny or changing the

topic) or the c______________________ (by resisting the urge to kick him out), then it is

possible that the behavior might not occur.

All behavior occurs to o________________ on the environment (i.e.,

“__________________ ______________________________”)

Remember that the environment refers to the external world as well as the individual’s internal

world.

All behavior occurs to force an environment to either _________________

___________________________________________________________. In order

to make our interventions better and more effective, we need to identify _________

behaviors occur. During this “why” assessment (i.e., ___________________ Behavioral

Assessment), we need to look at several things:

Antecedent
Behavior
Consequence

By recording _________________ three term contingencies or learn units, we can start to

look at ________________ in behavior which may help us to determine “why” someone is

performing this behavior.

Example

· Mrs. Johnson is a teacher in a kindergarten
· Johnny and Mary are cursing in the classroom.
· Cursing occurs when they are exposed to situations that are aversive (usually math).
· Current intervention - scolding them – is not effective
· Applies a negative punishment procedure Time Out for both students. (This is called a “_________________________” approach; because you are using one technique without examining individual factors that are impacting the behavior).
o Baseline: only scolding
o Intervention: no speaking – simply take students by the hand and put them into the time out room.

· Baselines are the same.
· Effect of the intervention is different
o Johnny: after the time out intervention was put into place, his cursing behavior increased
o Mary: the time out intervention appeared to decrease her cursing behavior.
o Why this difference?

We can only conclude: _________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

Let’s look at Mary first. Her three term contingencies during baseline are outlined in the table below:

Once Mrs., Johnson stops scolding her and starts using the time out room instead, her behavior decreases. Why? It appears that the punishment procedures worked – Mary was removed from a situation in which she was actually receiving reinforcement.

But hold on a minute! We mentioned before that Mary would curse in situations that were already aversive to her. So how was she obtaining reinforcement?

If we can exclude that no other children were giving her reinforcement, we would need to say that the teacher, by scolding her was giving her p_______ ________________________________________. Remember that the definition of positive reinforcement is the ___________________________ _________________________________________________________________And that is what the stimulus (Mrs. Johnson’s scolding), performed right after the behavior (Mary cursing) is doing in this instance.

In essence, the time out procedure operated almost as a mini-experiment to test this assumption out. Mary cursed, and was placed in time out without the teacher speaking to her. She was not able to access the ____________ ___________________________________, which was acting as a positive reinforcer for her.


Let’s look at Johnny’s baseline three term contingencies:
In essence, this is the exact same chart as Mary’s chart. Once Mrs., Johnson stops scolding him and starts using the time out room instead, his behavior increases. Why? It appears that Johnny is being n______________ _________________________________________ for his cursing behavior, both during baseline and probably more so after the intervention.

In both phases (during baseline and intervention), he is allowed to escape or delay performing his math assignments. For Johnny, the scolding serves as a negative reinforcer – __________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________And that is what the stimulus (Mrs. Johnson’s scolding), performed right after the behavior (Johnny cursing) is doing in this instance.

In essence, the time out procedure operated almost as a mini-experiment to test this assumption out. Johnny cursed, and was placed in time out. While in time-out, although he could not access reinforcement (as was Mary’s gripe), he did not have to do his math assignments. Over time, he learned that if he cursed enough times, he could potentially avoid or escape the entire math period.

We can say that May performed the behavior to obtain __________________ ____________________________. Therefore, the function of her behavior was _______________________ ___________________________________. We can also say that Johnny performed the behavior for _____________________ __________________________________________ – he cursed in order to _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________. Therefore, the function of his behavior is ________________________ ___________________________________.

This example is important because it highlights some important aspects of functional behavioral assessment and functional behavioral analysis:

1. _________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________

2. ____________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________

3.________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________

4. ___________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________

5. ________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________