The Seven High-Hit Reasons for Students’ Challenging Behavior
For students with significant social, emotional, and/or behavioral issues, functional behavioral assessments (FBAs) are often a significant part of the assessment process. However, many FBAs still are completed using approaches that have existed since the 1970s, they focus on a narrow operant perspective of behavior that does not incorporate over 40 years of biologically- and psychologically-based research, and hence, they may result in questionable conclusions and recommendations.
This presentation describes the seven “high-hit” reasons why students present with behavioral challenges, discussing how to assess these reasons as part of a “21st Century” FBA. It also demonstrates how to link each high-hit functional assessment reason with specific social, emotional, or behavioral interventions. The tiers in such a multi-tiered system will be defined based on the intensity of services and supports. Thus, most of the discussion will center on what should be the Tier II level of strategies and interventions.
Critically, most “traditional” FBAs assess for only two of the seven high-hit types (i.e., students with motivational or emotional difficulties). This presentation will assert that some student behavior does not have a specific motivational function. Thus, a traditional FBA may not always be helpful to the assessment process.
