Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA): An Approach to Behavioral Intervention Planning for the Challenging Behaviors in Schools

This study describes the conceptual foundations of functional behavior assessment (FBA) history, methods and its role in designing behavioral interventions, and review of a number of researches with an emphasis on challenging behavior in schools.
Source of Data: SAGE journals, Springer, Elsevier, Science Direct, PsycNET, PubMed, Proquest and Google scholar databases were used to search for information.
A literature review was utilized as a method of this study. A number of valid articles and thesis which were used functional behavior assessment for challenging behaviors of children and adolescent up to 30 July, 2016 were evaluated. Selected studies were combined on the basis of the existing theories and models related to functional behavior assessment.
In different situations (especially in education), challenging behaviors may either interfere with individual learning and development or harm to the child itself and others. Functional behavior assessment, as an approach against behavior topography, seeks to identify the function of challenging behaviors by designing the reinforcement-based interventions using the assessment results. This approach has been examined in relationship with various problem behaviors in numerous studies over the past 70 years.
A review of the research literature on functional behavior assessment suggests considerable evidence regarding the effectiveness of this approach, which is therefore of paramount importance to use especially in the areas of general education and special education.