Question: Ben is a 12-year-old, fourth grade student at a local elementary school. He has been diagnosed with a learning disability and has an Individualized Education Plan (IEP).

Ben is a 12-year-old, fourth grade student at a local elementary school. He has been diagnosed with a learning disability and has an Individualized Education Plan (IEP). Ben engages in several behaviors that are viewed as major problem behaviors by his teacher. These behaviors include refusing to follow directions, failing to complete work, not paying attention when the teacher is talking, and making disruptive comments during instructional time. The school protocol is to address these behaviors with office discipline referrals but these do not appear to have an impact on his behaviors. Choose one specific indirect assessment tool reviewed in Chapter 7( transcript attached) of your assigned reading and describe how that particular tool can be useful in teasing out potentially controlling variables and reinforcing stimuli associated with the target behavior in your hypothetical scenario.

TRANSCRIPT

The Assessment Process includes indirect methods, direct descriptive methods, and at times, functional analysis. We will be discussing all of these methods in detail this term. In this unit, we are going to focus on indirect methods. As we have discussed last unit, indirect methods involve structured interviews, checklists, rating scales and questionnaires. All of these methods are meant to gather information that drives the next phase of Functional Behavior Assessment. You can think of indirect methods of Functional Behavior Assessment as the information gathering phase. There are many different types of indirect methods that practitioners can use and your assigned reading for this unit provides excellent examples of many of the commonly used tools. Any interview or rat​‌‍‍‍‌‍‍‌‍‌‌‌‍‍‌‍‍‌‌‍​ing scale you use should result in identifying: The problem behavior(s) Context/routines where problem behavior is most and least likely Specific events (discriminative stimuli) that occasion the problem behavior(s) Specific consequences that appear reinforcing.

Some examples of Indirect Assessment Tools include the following: Functional Behavioral Assessment Screening Form (FBASF) - In addition to focusing on interfering behaviors, the FBASF takes into account behavioral strengths, reinforcers, and communication skills. Antecedent Variables Assessment Form (AVAF) is used to identify variables that serve to “trigger” the interfering behavior. It contains items across four variables that are typically related to interfering behaviors (environmental, instructional, social, transition). Consequence Variables Assessment Form (CVAF) is used to identify variables that typically follow the occurrence of interfering behaviors. The goal is to identify variables that reinforce interfering behaviors. This is where we identify the function of the interfering behavior (positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, automatic reinforcement). Individual Variables Assessment Form (IVAF) is used to identify individual variables (i.e. behavior deficits) that are associated with the interfering behavior. The individual variables could include things like communication deficits, cognitive deficits, personal sensitivities, etc. Behavior Stream Interview (BSI) focuses on the interaction of contextual variables associated with the interfering behavior. Looks at the ongoing flow of behaviors and related stimuli and helps to identify patterns by determining the sequence in which variables occur (used to capture the entire sequence of eve​‌‍‍‍‌‍‍‌‍‌‌‌‍‍‌‍‍‌‌‍​nts).