BEHAVIOUR DOMAIN
Effective behaviour plans are built on your understanding of the function of a student’s behaviour. Look at their behaviour from their perspective.
- Why is the student doing the behaviour?
- What is the need they are meeting from doing it?
- Why do they use this particular behaviour, rather than a more prosocial behaviour, to meet the need?
The function of the behaviour and the need it is attempting to meet is always valid – we all have needs for things such as attention, control and avoidance. It is the type of behaviour, its timing or intensity that is problematic.
This is the most complex part of the functional behaviour assessment that draws on your background knowledge of behaviour theories. The more familiar you are with these, the easier it will be to look at the information you have collected in ‘Describe the context’ from The ABC Chart.
Identify the Function
This part of the Functional Behaviour Assessment is the ‘scientific’ element of this process.
Once you have formed some hypotheses about the function of the behaviour, they need to be tested to see if they make sense or not. Existing information is first reviewed, then new information will also need to be obtained to further test the hypotheses. When you are confident that the hypothesis is well supported by your evidence, trial some strategies.
The Hypothesis Testing Worksheet can be used to follow this process.
Click to fill in the Hypothesis Testing Worksheet
The information above can be summarised on the Hypothesis Testing Worksheet. Download and save it to your computer.
