week 7

PS 410 – Unit 7 1

PS 410 – Unit 7

John Doe

Kaplan University

PS 410 – Unit 7 2

PS 410 – Unit 7

Mr. Phillips, the Principal at Goth Elementary School, called this office “Sunny Days are

Here Again”, with a request for an intervention plan. They have an 11 year old, Caucasian boy,

“Johnny”, which teachers and aides have described as having “aggressive and disruptive

“behaviors. These behaviors have been going on for about 2 years, Johnny was an ideal student

before and the change is troubling to all involved. The school does not have an onsite

psychologist to help with this matter, and limited funds for outside services and it is their desire,

to put some type of plan into action by the end of the week. As our facility does do outside

referrals, we will set up an appointment, with our therapist Linda, to educate the staff, at Goth

Elementary, as to the procedures of a functional Behavior Assessment, or FBA. With this, we

will be able to comprise a feasible intervention plan, to help Johnny adapt to whatever is going

on in his life.

Goth Elementary School is located in a rural area of our state, New Hampshire. It houses

students from Kindergarten to 5 th

grade and has a student/teacher ratio of 19:1, and no funding

for specialized teachers. Because of this, parents volunteer as aides, to help in the classroom.

Johnny is showing signs of aggression and is disruptive during class. The parent volunteers state

his aggressive behaviors is shouting at and pushing other students during reading circles and

kicking students in line when they are asked to line up to go to other activities, outside of the

classroom. The teacher states his disruptive behavior occurs when Johnny is asked to sit in

timeout, he cries and has a temper tantrum, falling to the floor and thrashing about. It is causing

the other students to be “wary” of Johnny, and avoiding him during recess and in the lunch room.

Sunny Side schedules a meeting with the staff and parent volunteers to discuss the steps

that need to be done, to develop an intervention plan for Johnny. In the meeting, Linda, the

PS 410 – Unit 7 3

psychologist assigned to the case, reviews the necessary steps that must be taken. The parents

and teacher believe, that with Linda’s help, this problem will be gone by the end of the week.

Knowing this Linda will go into the first meeting prepared to explain that it will take some time,

to assess and prepare a FBA or functional behavioral assessment. She asks for the contact

information for Johnny’s parents, it is imperative for her to speak to them before any group

meetings can be scheduled, she must receive verbal permission before she can schedule the

initial meeting with the staff at the school. Without verbal permission, she will violate the APA

ethics code of informed consent: 3.10, this gives her permission to speak with other individuals

who are directly involved with Johnny and to conduct interviews and observations with Johnny

(APA, 2010). She also requests that Johnny’s parents be in attendance also for the initial

meeting.

In the meeting. Johnny’s parents are in attendance, as are the Principal, teachers and

classroom aides, who are in contact with Johnny. As Linda begins talking, she makes it clear that

the expectations of everyone present, which are that she will “cure” Johnny in a couple of days,

is not possible. She explains that in order to create an accurate Functional Behavior Assessment

(FBA), she will need the cooperation of everyone and that they need to learn about assessments,

and the proper way to implement them. She also will conduct a teaching seminar, to ensure that

assessment forms are accurately filled out.

Linda begins the meeting with a discussion of what a FBA is, she explains that is an

investigating procedure that identifies and evaluates the stimulus that triggers the behaviors that

Johnny has shown and what stimulus maintains those behaviors (Steege & Watson, 2009). A

complete FBA consists of using indirect and direct descriptive assessments. The indirect

assessment will come from the parties, directly involved with Johnny, at the school and they will

PS 410 – Unit 7 4

identify and describe Johnny’s behaviors and help her to generate a hypothesis. The use of direct

descriptive assessments, will contain the direct observations that she and others record, to

determine what the best possible intervention plan, for Johnny will be (Steege & Watson, 2009).

These assessments will be both done by the aides, teachers and herself, over the course of 2-3

weeks. She explains by utilizing the indirect assessments, the school will be aiding her in

identifying when and where she needs to direct her observations, and that this will lower the cost

of the services (Steege & Watson, 2009). She further explains that having input from all parties

involved with Johnny, will enable her to get a clearer picture, with the knowledge that she may

not experience all of the behaviors described by the staff, while she is using the direct descriptive

assessment.

Linda explains that an FBA is pretty simple, it identifies what conditions or activities are

happening during the time when Johnny is shouting, kicking or throwing tantrums and the

consequences, that are the result of these behaviors, both to Johnny and to the other individuals

involved, basically the cause and effect of his behavior (Steege & Watson, 2009). She will be

using the FAIR-T or functional assessment informant record for teachers, and she will give the

aides AVAF’s and CVAF’s, antecedent variable assessment form and consequence variable

assessment form.

Linda explains the first step that needs to be done is having the teachers fill out FAIR-

T’s. This is a teacher completed report, which consists of four sections, 1- general referral

information, which is a description of what the teacher is observing in the classroom. 2- Problem

behaviors which are the shouting, pushing, kicking and temper tantrums. 3- Antecedents which

are the activities before Johnny acts out, and lastly 4- the consequences of Johnny’s behavior, if

the other students react and how they react would be included in this too. The FAIR-T will also

PS 410 – Unit 7 5

assist in the development the hypothesis to pinpoint Johnny’s behaviors. She will record when

the behavior takes place, the type of behavior shown, what is going on before and during the

behavior and what happens to Johnny after he displays the behavior (consequences).

The forms for indirect assessment, which the aides will be using are the AVAF and the

CVAF. The AVAF is a form to record the pre-behavior stimuli; such as the environment, the

activity Johnny is engaged in, the social aspects of the situation and how well Johnny transitions

from one situation or subject to another. Although Johnny may have other triggers for his

behavior, these stimulus are generally what is seen in a school setting (Steege & Watson, 2009).

The CVAF records the “consequences” or what the staff does when Johnny starts shouting,

kicking and throwing temper tantrums, this will help to determine if Johnny is attempting to gain

recognition by his behavior, or trying to “escape” from the tasks being asked of him. This also

includes a list of questions to use with the form, to see how the behaviors and consequences are

related (Steege & Watson, 2009).

The direct descriptive assessment form, the aides will be asked to use, will be the

FBAOF, or functional behavioral assessment observation form. This form will be used during

class, the aides can observe Johnny, while they are helping in class or on the playground and in

the lunch room, when he starts to shout at the other students, or kick them in line, they will

record the time and day, the setting or subject being taught, what was asked of Johnny or of other

students, what Johnny did, what the consequence was, and if it had any effect, does it increase or

decrease during certain times or with certain people. There will also be a spot for identifying the

staff who filled out the form, having multiple observations, by different aides, will help to see if

the behavior happens more with one aide or another. This is used for each singular behavior

PS 410 – Unit 7 6

shown, and would be helpful when used during lunch and recess, when Johnny is ignored by

fellow students (Steege & Watson, 2009).

As the aides, in the classroom, are parent volunteers, Linda requests that they be taught,

by her, how to properly observe and effectively report the information that is being requested on

the forms. This will all be covered in the teaching seminar. She predicts that with a week or two

of observations, the aides and teachers should be able to give a fairly good report of what the

antecedents are, and Linda can have a good idea of where and when to conduct her own

observations.

The teaching seminar will help all of the parties involved, first discussing the forms in

detail, and taking turns, role playing, in order to practice filling out the forms as accurately as

possible. During the teaching seminar, Linda explains the direct assessment forms she, herself

will use during her own observations, these will be the IRA, or interval recording procedure, and

the CPR or conditional probability record.

The IRA is not for use by individuals, who are not extensively trained. It involves

directly observing and recording the individual behaviors. The behaviors are documented in

prespecified intervals, such as 5, 10 or 15 minutes (Steege & Watson, 2009). This method will

record what is going on in the lesson, since the aides only observe his shouting and pushing

during reading, this will narrow down the time needed for the observation in the classroom.

Additionally, the IRA will documents how severe the appropriate behavior and the interfering

behaviors are and if there is any correlationships with how Johnny interacts with the other

students and the teacher during his appropriate and inappropriate behavior (Steege & Watson,

2009).

PS 410 – Unit 7 7

Linda further explains how she will use the CPR, to use after she has completed the IRA,

the CPR will help to figure out what is happening to make Johnny react verbally and physically

towards the other students and how the other students react towards Johnny and what the staff

does when this behavior happens. With this analysis, Linda can predict when Johnny will lash

out, and when he will have his temper tantrums, since Johnny has them when he is sent to a time

out because of his behavior. The IRA will be used to record how his temper tantrums disrupt the

class, the severity, how long they last, the staff present during the tantrum, the consequences of

the tantrum and how the other students are reacting to them (Steege & Watson, 2009). With this

out of the way, Linda can sit with the parents and dig deeper into Johnny’s past, home life and

other concerns that they may have.

During the week of observations, conducted by others, Linda meets with the parents, to

find out specifics of Johnny’s childhood, illnesses, accidents, trauma etc…it is during this time

she finds out they recently have separated, after a long attempt at working through personal

problems. This is an “ah ha” moment for Linda, making a mental note for future reference. She

finds out too, that Johnny is an only child, and the personal problems stem from a miscarriage

the mother had at 8 months pregnant, a little over 2 years ago. These are huge discoveries, for

Linda, knowing that Johnny’s behavior issues started shortly after the miscarriage, will likely

open up some doors for the intervention, which may not have been discovered thru school

observations and indirect assessments.

With the indirect assessments in hand, and the new knowledge of Johnny’s home life,

Linda can now begin her own observations, using the IRA and CPR, direct descriptive

assessment forms. Due to the fact that Johnny has been a wonderful student, up until two years

ago, Linda is inclined to think that the problems at home are causing the behavior problems at

PS 410 – Unit 7 8

school. When she has all of the necessary information, from Johnny’s teachers and all of the

aides, she will have a better understanding of when to expect Johnny to react to certain stimulus.

Knowing that she has personally trained the staff, and they are properly prepared to accurately

record their own observations, Linda feels confident, when all the information is gathered, that

she will be able to help Johnny return to his happy, helpful self by constructing an intervention to

help him through his difficult time.

PS 410 – Unit 7 9

References

APA Ethics Code, Retrieved from: http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/index.aspx

Steege, M. W. & Watson, T. S. (2009).Conducting school-based functional behavioral

assessments: A practitioner's guide (2 nd

ed.). New York, NY: The Guilford Press