Functional Behavior Assessment Training in Public Schools

Abstract

The disciplinary regulations of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1997 imposed new demands on educators. These include the requirement to conduct functional behavioral assessments for students with disabilities in public school settings prior to certain disciplinary practices, and to conduct these assessments as a basis for developing behavior intervention plans. In this article, we examine the logistics of instilling this new routine in schools from a systems change perspective. It is argued that effecting such change requires that planners (a) carefully assess the attitudes and beliefs of school staff and (b) use the knowledge gained from such assessments to construct policies and training agendas that precorrect for these barriers. Suggested strategies for accomplishing this are illustrated.

Traditional Assessment, Consultation, and Intervention Practices: Urban School Psychologists' Use, Importance, and Competence Ratings

“…These practitioners indicated a strong interest in functional assessment procedures. Implementing a best practice approach to functional assessment, which is preventative and targets environmental aspects such as the instructional ecology of the classroom, requires a coordinated process applied across adults in the school (Gettinger & Stoiber, 2006;Scott et al, 2003;Stoiber, 2004). A focus on functional assessment also may represent a huge shift in practice for this group (i.e., away from clinical-personality assessment).…”

“…To be efficient, functional assessments should also incorporate clearly structured procedures and approaches for determining intervention outcomes and for measuring changes needed (Gettinger & Stoiber, 2006;Scott et al, 2003;Stoiber, 2004). Such a structure is available in comprehensive functional assessment packages that blend scientifically-and practically-based approaches in facilitating the development of social competencies and desired behavior change (see Stoiber, 2004;Ysseldyke & Christenson, 2002).…”

“…Thus, the authors of the current study used a participatory collaborative research approach in which we functioned as consultants in joining with a core group of school psychologists in planning steps toward an early intervening and consultation-oriented model of service delivery (often referred to in the literature as a problem-solving model or solution-focused practices; see Burns et al, 2005). Consistent with other systems change efforts, we believed that to effect significant change in service delivery the collaborative planners should (a) carefully assess the current attitudes and beliefs of the involved staff (i.e., school psychology practitioners), and (b) use the knowledge gained from the assessment to construct the agenda for professional development (Lewis et al, 1998;Scott, Nelson, & Zabala, 2003). In particular we were interested in evaluating whether a gap exists between what urban school psychologists value and desire as their role and what they actually do.…”

Increasing support staff fluency with the content of behaviour support plans: An application of precision teaching

“…However, Van Acker et al (2005) suggest that staff training alone is insufficient to embed new interventions, and staff may require multiple opportunities for practice, modelling, coaching, feedback and support in real environments with real individuals to improve the development and implementation of a BSP (see also, Chandler, Dahlquist, Repp & Feltz, 1999;Scott, Nelson & Zabala, 2003). This need for "a culture of support" (Bambara, Gomez, Koger, Lohrmann-O'Rourke and Xin, 2001) with feedback for direct support staff on an on-going basis echoes the implementation science literature that describes effective implementation not as a one off event, but as an ongoing process (Ogden & Fixsen, 2014).…”

Construing Misbehavior

“…countering possible resistance by presenting evidence that contradicts false perceptions (Scott et al, 2003).…”