Team-based functional behavior assessment as a proactive public school process: A descriptive analysis of current barriers

Although functional behavior assessment (FBA) has been widely recognized as a promising practice for providing proactive interventions with students exhibiting challenging behaviors in typical schools, questions persist as to how FBA should best be trained and used in such public settings. Debate has balanced the issue of what is practical for public school personnel and whether FBA can ever reach that level of practicality while maintaining a level of integrity necessary to be a valid technology for behavior intervention. This paper presents a descriptive analysis of the perceptions and practices of 13 school-based FBA teams that included one or more members who received a 1-day workshop on FBA. Teams were asked to respond to a brief questionnaire regarding their perceptions of the process, what information they found useful, and how that information was used. Results indicate several problem issues and barriers that must be addressed before team-based FBA is widely advocated and practiced in public school settings. Sample team responses and discussion of future directions are included.