Functional Behavioral Assessment - Weebly



Description of student: CW is 13 years old and is diagnosed with emotional and behavioral disability. He is a very energetic boy, and due to some of his personal history and upbringing, there is a lot of need for physical comfort and support. CW struggles with focusing, however, when CW is prompted multiple times or given a consequence, he can usually bring it back together very quickly. CW has an extremely difficult time with understanding and demonstrating personal boundaries, both physically and verbally. He demonstrates this behavior on a daily basis with staff and peers. Sometimes CW can invade personal space very intensely (both arms on other person, and face a couple inches away from the other person. Other times, CW is not so intense and will come up and whisper in someone’s ear while they were facing the other direction (almost as if he was trying to scare them). Operational Definition: During any form of school activity (academic, free time, lunch, specials; PE & Art) when staff and peers are present, CW will demonstrate 0the act of invading personal space by being closer than 1 arms length to the other person, by either physically touching (having hands on shoulders, grabbing arm, touching hair, feet touching others under the table, or knees being rubbed against staff or peer who he is standing by, or by demonstrating sexual acts towards others (air humping the other person, whispering near ear). The student will partake in this behavior for longer than 2 seconds, usually lasting about 10-20 seconds, even when he is told to “take a minute”. CW will demonstrate good use of personal space when he is more than one arms length apart from staff or peer, when his hands, or feet do not touch anyone but himself, and when he is not partaking in indirect sexual acts (not whispering dirty things into peers’ ears, or air humping staff when they are turned the other direction. A-B-C Summary: During my observation, I got to watch the behavior occur between 6-7 times throughout the 4 hours that I was in the classroom observing the student. The challenging part for me is I noticed that a lot of the invading personal space behavior was either happening to myself personally which made it difficult at times to record. I think that originally we thought this behavior was one that although was happening on a consistent basis, it was not necessarily multiple times a day, however after observing for 90 minutes throughout the week, I started to notice that this behavior is a little bit more prevalent than I had thought. Specifically some of the more inappropriate behaviors for invading personal space such as air humping peers from the behind, grabbing on to staffs arms, or whispering dirty songs or just plain old simple words into the ears of staff and peers from behind seemed to be happening more often. The benefit from doing this A B C chart was that I was able to see what is usually occurring before the behavior occurs. It helped me a lot in determining the function of CW’s behavior. I am at school both in the morning and the afternoon so I got to observe CW in many different settings and many different times, and during unstructured free play, CW seemed to have the most “take a minute” requests for trouble with keep personal space. It was pretty apparent that CW was engaging in invading personal space to gain attention because that seemed to be the most consistent consequence given after the behavior had occurred. Summary Statement: There is no identified distant setting event. When CW is participating in free play with peers, he will begin to invade others personal space by either touching or grabbing staff or students, have close proximity (closer than arms reach away), partake in sexual acts towards peers such as air humping, or caressing or rubbing others to gain attention from peers and staff and at times to escape activities or academic tasks. FAI Summary: (See Appendix A for the Functional Assessment Interview) I felt that I was very lucky because I got to interview multiple people in the school setting that work with CW on a daily basis. I was also able to interview some of the staff from the residential unit as well. At the school, I interviewed the special education teacher, the school social worker, the two teacher assistants, and a member of the Peace Crisis Team as well. At the residential unit, I was able to interview 2 of the staff on shift. I was able to receive information from multiple people’s point of view. This was extremely helpful, but at times, also made it very complicated because I had to pick and choose what the important information would be. Everyone has observed the behavior, but when determining the frequency, most of the people could not agree on a particular amount. That was when my A-B-C chart and my FAO came in handy. Since there was only one particular problem behavior “invading personal space” it made some of the questions on the interview not really relevant. I also noticed that when I was interviewing staff, we could not pinpoint any particular setting or time of day that would most likely initiate the problem behavior. When conversing with staff, we could not really think of anything that would set the student off. However, when the student is angry or set off, we noticed that he tends to crowd up on people in anger, and talk very close to their face. I was really happy that I was able to interview a bunch of people because it showed me that this problem behavior was a real concern for the student and his progress in being able to attend a public school. Personal space in a boundary issue, and it was great to see the help they were offering me so that a program could be set in place to help find alternative behaviors. FAO Summary: There were some things that I noticed when I did an FAO on CW for two days. For one, I noticed that when observing the student, the problem behavior had an increase in frequency, particularly during recess times where the activities are less structured. The behavior seemed to serve the function of gaining attention from peers. During structured activities, the behavior did occur as well, however, the function seemed to be more for either escaping a task, or obtaining a desired activity or object (piece of candy, or getting the teacher’s attention so he can take an anger control break). I thought that a huge benefit to doing the FAO was that I was able to actually identify when the behavior is mostly occurring, and some common predictors. It seemed that the most common predictor was free play and with peers, however, a difficult task and no attention also seemed to be big factors in why the behavior is occurring.Summary Statement: There was no identified distant setting event. When CW is given an academic task that may be difficult, or free play with peers, or when he would like to demand or request something, he will invade personal space, by either touching or grabbing staff or students, having close proximity (closer than arms reach away), whisper in staff or peers ears, partake in sexual acts towards peers such as air humping, or caressing or rubbing others to gain attention from staff and peers, to escape a difficult task, and/or to obtain a desired activity or object. Functional Analysis Manipulation: Hypotheses: When CW is given a difficult task, he will engage in invading personal space of others, by grabbing or touching peers or staff, have close proximity (closer than one arms length away), or come up to faces of others and make growling noises to gain attention, or to escape the activity or task. When CW is participating in free play or with peers, he will engage in invading personal space of others by grabbing or touching peers or staff, having close proximity (closer than ones arm length away), whisper right into peers or staff ear, partake in sexual acts such as air humping, hugging, or caressing/rubbing others to gain attention from peers and staff. After conducting my A-B-C chart, I noticed that a distant setting event, was a task or direction was given right before the immediate antecedent had occurred. I kept that in mind while I was conducting my FAO. When I finished my FAO and looked at the data collected, I realized that for some of the behavior, it was specifically linked to a difficult task. For example, when told to do his Math, CW increased in the frequency of his invading personal space behavior. He would grab staff’s shoulders and whisper song lyrics, or go up to peers and distract them. With that in mind, I was thinking that maybe invading personal space is a way for him to get sent to the blue chair, eventually leading to a time away meaning escaping from the undesired or difficult task. For the second hypothesis, I gained a lot of my information from the FAI and the FAO. During the interview, it was a concern that the problem behavior was occurring when mostly peers were around to help distract them from their work. As I was conducting the FAO, I kept that in mind to see if his peers had an impact. Although I noticed the behavior happen some times when the student was working individually mainly to gain an object of desire (candy, or attention from staff), the student exhibited the behavior majority of the time in a group setting when peers were around and during a less structured time such as recess. A specific time when I noticed the behavior spike in frequency was during recess. When discussing this behavior during the interview, we all seemed to think that CW loves the attention, and that seems to be the main motivating drive behind his behavior whether he wants some type of affection from staff because he lacked so much of it as a child, or to look cool in front of his friends, attention seemed to be a big factor in all of my observations (A-B-C, FAO) and interview. For hypothesis one, I would consider setting up the environment in a way to prevent the behavior from occurring. Have all the requests or desires met before the academic task took place ( have candy on desk in the morning, have fresh water in his water bottle, and have all the materials ready to go). To help with the difficult tasks, have fewer problems for the day. Start small and continue working up. The student seems to do better when working individually because all attention is on the student, so maybe working in the back room, or separate location might help him as well. For hypothesis 2, I would consider completely ignoring all invading personal space behavior. Specifically towards staff. When CW wants attention and comes up to grab your shoulders or your arms, completely ignore him (providing zero attention for invading personal space behavior). Then the next day provide him with undivided attention to see if invading personal space is to gain attention of the staff. If the student part takes in the problem behavior more because you are constantly giving him attention during invading personal space behavior, then we could conclude that the student engages in invading personal space to gain attention. Implementation and Results of FAM: I did the FAM over a period of 4 days. Each day consisted of 4 sessions which lasted up to an hour each. On Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, the sessions started at 11 and ended at 3. On Tuesday the session started at 8 and ended at 12. First I had to talk with my Cooperating Teacher and the two TAs in the classroom. We had to discuss that on Monday, CW was going to be receiving attention for any form of invading personal space behavior (whether he would be redirected, taken to time away, or reinforced with a hug or pat on the back). For each session during Monday, the student was given constant attention for invading personal space behavior. Event Recording was done to keep track of the number of times the behavior was occurring in an hour. There was an increase in the invading personal space behavior during this manipulation (6 different occurrences during the 4 one hour sessions). On Tuesday staff was advised to provide no attention to the student when he was engaging in invading personal space. It had to be made clear that if it the student posed a great boundary threat to his peers, then some interaction would be needed. During this, invading personal space behavior went down a little bit (4 different occurrences were recorded in 4 one hour sessions, and 3 of the occurrences happened during the lunch recess hour). On Wednesday, the constant attention manipulation was used again. This showed an increase in invading personal space behavior (7 occurrences were recorded in 4 one hour sessions. 3 of the 7 occurrences happened during lunch recess hour). Thursday, the manipulation went back to no attention and during that time, the invading personal space behavior decreased (3 occurrences happened during the 4 one hour sessions). This type of manipulation led to the conclusion that a pattern could be determined; the student was engaging in invading personal space to gain attention from peers and staff. Preference Hierarchy/ Assessment: (See Appendix B for MSWO Data Sheet) When I was conducting my FAI with the teacher, she gave me a couple things that CW would prefer in each particular category (food, activity, other). She did not know as much as I would like so with that in mind, I interview CW himself to see what he had to say. It was very helpful because it gave me an idea of what I was going to use for my preference assessment. Although he gave me a list of many things, I was able to narrow it down to a couple things I have heard CW talk about in the past. I noticed that basketball might have been lower down on the list because it was an activity that was regularly available to him when he takes anger control breaks. There was one assessment when food was high up on his selection. I thought that this might have been because instead of doing the assessment after lunch, we did it in the morning around 10:30, so he might have been more hungry than normal. CW has talked a lot about music and playing instruments in the past. He use to play the guitar when he was younger, and when he came to Cunningham Children’s Home, he was not able to take his guitar with him. With that in mind, I think that getting to play with the guitar was a very big deal to him because it had a sentimental value to it as well. I noticed that the wrestling magazine was a high a selection pick at first, and then once the student was able to look at it a couple of times, it started to get picked less and less because it was old news. I think the jalape?o cheetos were not a high selection for CW because he already on an instructional program where jalape?o cheetos was one of his rewards. Data Collection Rational: See Appendix C for Data Collection FormI chose to use Event Recording because it was not a behavior that occurs at a high frequency. There is a clear distinction when the behavior is taking place, and when the behavior is ending. The behavior is usually the same duration for each time it is exhibited. For example, the student will usually grab the shoulders of staff for about 10-20 seconds. He would usually stay in staff or peers face for about 10-20 seconds, or he will engage in sexual acts such as air humping for about 10-20 seconds. If the student starts performing the behavior less, then the rate of the behavior would decrease which would help give evidence that a intervention is successful. Baseline Data:**Completed data forms are attached. See Appendix D for Baseline Data taken by both myself, and one of the teacher assistants, Ms. P. IOA: The IOA was gathered by comparing my data collection to another teacher assistant in the classroom. The teacher assistant and I collected data during the afternoon when 2 other students were out so the classroom was over staffed. We watched from 11-3 which includes 5 different subjects/activities. The teacher assistant was given a operational definition of invading personal space. He was to keep track by tallying every time the behavior occurred for that each hour using the Event Recording Data Sheet. I would be doing the same thing. At the end I would look at Interval by Interval IOA to determine if the teacher assistant and I were in agreement with what we both observed during the 4 hour observation periods. Results of IOA:Interval By Interval IOA: 17/20 = .85 x 100 = 85% agreement llllllllll0lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll + + + + - - - + + + + + + + + + + + + +As you can see from the above table, I used interval by interval agreement to see the inter-observer agreement. There were 3 intervals out the 20 where me and the other observer did not agree on what we saw. One reason for this is that because during that particular day, the teacher had to step out of the class to handle a consequence, leave only one staff in the classroom so I was trying to observe, but help out as much as I could so that the class did not go into total chaos. With that in mind,I think I might have missed a few occurrences. I think that I would want to continue this data for another week to make sure that my observational definition has nothing to do with the disagreement. If I notice that there are more disagreements, then I would maybe consider changing my operational definition, or train the observer a little bit better before having them begin recording. However, I think that was not the case for this instance. References: Annotated Reference List:Higgins, J., Williams, R., & McLaughlin, T. F. (2001). The Effects of a Token Economy Employing Instructional Consequences for a Third-Grade Student with Learning Disabilities: A Data-based Case Study. Education And Treatment Of Children, 24(1), 99-106. Bani, M (2011): The use and frequency of verbal and non-verbal praise innurture groups, Emotional and Behavioral Difficulties, 16:1, 47-67Lalli, J. S., Mace, F., (1991). Linking descriptive and experimental analyses in the treatment of bizarre speech. Journal Of Applied Behavior Analysis, 24(3), 553-62. Edwards, R. P., Marlow, A. G., Olmi, D. & Tingstrom, D. H. (1997). The effects of classroom-based time-in/time-out on compliance rates in children with speech/language disabilities. Child & Family Behavior Therapy, 19(2), 1-15. In the first article, The effects of a token economy employing instructional consequences for a third grade student with learning disabilities, the main purpose was to determine if the use of a Token Economy system used as a reward would help decrease 3 problem behaviors (Higgins. J., McLaughlin, T.F., Williams, R, 2011). Those problem behaviors were getting out of seat, poor posture, and talking out. The token economy proved to be effective in reducing problem behaviors. The study used a multiple baseline design which proved the effectiveness of the reward system on all 3 behaviors. I thought this would be a good article because it particularly focuses on a token economy reward system which is something I would use in my consequent intervention. In the second article, The use and frequency of verbal and non-verbal praise in nurture groups, the main idea was to look at the effects of positive verbal and non verbal praise given to students and how it would improve their behavior and self esteem (Bani, M, 2011). According to the article, the effects of verbal and non verbal praise greatly improved both; behavior and self esteem. I think that for me this article was particularly useful because it talks about specifically working with nurture groups. This is kind of like the setting I am teaching in, so the examples of the specific children involved were easy to relate to my placement. The results were amazing in how the students responded to the positive verbal and non verbal praise. For every incidence of positive verbal and non verbal praise, there were 0 inappropriate behaviors. I think this would work really nicely in my program. It goes with the flow of the routine and is a very natural reward. In the third article, Linking descriptive and experimental analysis in the treatment of bizarre speech, after conducting a functional analysis, it was proven that the student was engaging in making bizarre noises and comments to gain staff attention during 4 different conditions (Lalli, J.S, Mace, F.C., 1991). The study used the intervention of scheduled staff attention as an antecedent strategy to help with decreasing the behavior. The attention was scheduled on a variable ration occurring between 90s, 60s, and 30s intervals. The student’s bizarre speech did decrease. When the student did engage in bizarre speech, the student was completely ignored (extinction). I thought that this was a good article to read because although it does not relate to my behavior, the scheduled staff attention intervention is something I want to use in mine, so it gave me an idea of how I can schedule specific attention. In the last article, The effects of classroom-based time in/time out on compliance rates in children with speech and language disabilities, the main purpose was to look at the use of verbal praise and physical touch had the students complying more with staff, and decreasing disruptive behavior compared to time out and time in combined (Edwards, R., Marlow, A., Olmi, D, Tingstrom, D., 1997). When time in and time out were used together, the decrease in disruptive behaviors and compliance increased greatly. The term time out in this study refers to being time away from positive reinforcement. That positive reinforcement could be a reward, or even just the class room environment, or the activity for a brief period of time (Edwards et al, 1997, 2). I thought this was particularly interesting because it is something we do in the classroom currently. We focus mainly on positive reinforcement, but when the behaviors become increasingly unsafe or disrespectful; the student must go to time away to talk about what happened. This would be the very last consequent that would occur if the student proceeded to have major boundary issues. This article proved the time in/time out strategy to be effective, so it would be interesting to see how it would work for my student as well. Intervention Program: Antecedent Based: When looking at the hypothesis, and gathering data (A-B-C forms, and FAO), one of the thoughts was that CW was engaging in invading personal space behavior because he was seeking attention from peers and adults. For example, he would just get back into the classroom from a break and would immediately run up to staff and grab their shoulders. When conducting the FAO it was noted that a lot of his behavior was done when he was with peers to gain their attention by part taking in inappropriate behavior. For this intervention, it would be important to create a schedule of attention. After conducting the FAO, it was apparent that invading personal space behavior was occurring more during unstructured activities and when he was with his peers. There seemed to be an increase in invading personal space behavior particularly during recess, and then at times when independent work was being done in the classroom, so the student did not have the attention of his peers or all of the staff. With this is mind, during independent work, the student will need to be given positive attention every couple of minutes. Most individual work is done during the Math portion of the day 8:40-9:30 and during the literacy block from 12:15-1:30. Those would be critical times when attention would need to be scheduled in. When the student is walking back into the classroom from taking a break, staff can greet him as he walks him, providing him that positive attention he needs. Another time when attention from staff may need to be scheduled in is during recess. By providing the positive attention he needs, it may prevent him from having to go up to staff and grabbing their shoulders. Criterion needs to be determined. Meeting criterion will occur when the student has 0-1 occurrences of invading personal space for 5 consecutive days. Once the student meets criteria, then fading can take place and the schedule will get larger in terms of the length of time and amount of attention the student will be getting. Alternative skills: The student engages in invading personal space to gain attention from staff by grabbing them or touching their arm. It is important that he is taught more appropriate ways to gain staff attention. Some alternative skills could be for him to give a fist bump. He would still be receiving the same outcome which is obtaining attention from staff. It is important that the alternative skill can be taught in conjunction with the antecedent strategy. If the student is given the scheduled attention, then there is more control over the teaching opportunities. Since it is easy to determine when the student is about to invade one’s space, the alternative skill can be taught and prompted before the problem behavior occurs. As CW walks into the room, staff can immediately remind him, by saying “remember fist bump if you want to come up say hi, so I know you are back in the room”. That in particular would be important because it will give him time to think about the appropriate behavior and not impulsively grab staff to get their attention. Using a fist bump would be particularly useful and effective because it is not much effort compared to the problem behavior; he is still gaining the same outcome in an efficient amount of time (almost instantaneous when he goes up to get a fist bump). From conducting the FAI, it was apparent that due to CW’s up-bringing, that physical touch and comfort is important to him. With this type of alternative behavior, there is still some physical interaction, but just in a more appropriate way. Consequent Based:It is important that instruction procedures are being used to teach an alternative behavior. This could be done by using peer praise. By praising students for modeling appropriate personal space, it might prompt or cue CW to remember his personal boundaries and the appropriate distance he should have. Another way to help with teaching the alternate behavior is prompting. This can be done, by reminding CW that if he would like a hug or some form of comfort from staff he must ask. If he would like staff attention, remind him to call staff name and walk up to them to give a fist bump. A gesture can be used as prompt as well. An example of this is staff holding their arm out in front of them so CW can see how far he should be. It would be ideal for the student’s behavior to become extinct because personal space not only poses a boundaries issue, but a safety issue as well. With that in mind, any time the student invades personal space in a way such as physically grabbing or touching staff, staff should try and get away from student as soon as possible and provide little attention other than removing themselves away from the student. When the student appropriately comes up to them and is standing an arms length away, the student will be rewarded with a verbal praise. The praise will be directly related to the student having appropriate personal space. If the student has 10 different opportunities of appropriate personal space during the school week, he will be rewarded with time playing the guitar. Getting to play the guitar seems to be a huge motivator for CW according the Preference Assessment conducted during the functional assessment. If the student continues to engage in invading personal space in an inappropriate way, and starts to pose a major boundary issue, the student will be sent to time away where he will do work out of class with him and one other staff member. I think that teaching a more appropriate behavior and rewarding that behavior would be most beneficial because CW is still obtaining the same function in a relatively easy and efficient way. Data Collection: Event recording will be used to determine if the frequency of behavior is decreasing from the use of the interventions in place. Since it may be difficult to have a staff in the room at all times, a simple data collection procedure will be used. There will be 4, one hour sessions that take place through-out the school day. Each staff working with that student during individual will keep data, and when the student is working in the group, the teacher will keep the data. Data will be done, by keeping 20 pennies in his/her left pocket. Every time the student engages in the behavior, move one penny from the left pocket over to the right pocket. At the end of the hour, count how many pennies are in the right pocket. Record using tallies on the Event Data Recording Sheet. At the end of the day, total the amount of tallies and that will be the rate at which the behavior was occurring throughout the day. Do this for one week to see if the intervention is working. The following week remove the intervention completely. Again, keep track using the provided data collection with pennies. Record the data received on the Event Data Recording Sheet. The next week, implement the intervention again, and the following week, take away the intervention. If you notice that there is an increase in invading personal space behavior during the weeks where no intervention was taking place, then you can conclude that the intervention is successful at decreasing invading personal space behavior. Appendix:Functional Analysis Interview Form (Pages 1-9)Multiple Stimuli without Replacement (MSWO) Data SheetData Recording Form w/ directions (Event Recording Blank)Baseline Data Recording Forms (2 forms, Ms. Nicki’s Data and Ms. P) ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download