"There's always an antecedent." Why your child does this at school, and what to ask the team.

A free article for families, derived from Special Learning's course "Strategies to Increase Beginner Classroom Participation Skills: Decreasing Problem Behavior Using an FBA, Part 1," presented by Christine Austin.

Maybe the school has called again. Your child hit, or threw the worksheet, or refused to work for most of the morning. And maybe someone has now told you the team is going to "do an FBA."

This session was recorded for professionals. It's the first of two on problem behavior, and it covers the part that has to happen before any plan: finding out why. Almost all of it is useful to the parent who has to sit in that meeting.

First, what an FBA is

FBA stands for functional behavior assessment. The presenter's definition is short. It's designed to find out "what function a behavior serves for a person."

Not what the behavior looks like. What it does for your child.

She says everything else depends on getting that right: "if you have not identified what is truly maintaining that behavior you're not going to make progress with your behavior plan."

Two reasons, underneath everything

The session gives a simple map. There are "really two reasons," the presenter says, for why any of us behave the way we do: "to get something that you want or get out of something."

Getting something can mean attention, or an object, or a feeling the body gives itself, like rocking or hand flapping. Getting out of something can mean escaping a task or relieving discomfort, the way you scratch an itch.

Two children can do exactly the same thing for opposite reasons. One throws the worksheet to get the teacher to come over. Another throws it so the worksheet goes away. Those two children need different plans, and that's why the assessment exists.

What happened before, and what happened after

Every behavior sits between what happened right before it and what happened right after it. Both shape whether it happens again.

And some things happened much earlier. The presenter lists how the child slept, eating patterns, mood that day, even indigestion. These things "affect our behavior but don't happen immediately before the behavior." The school usually can't see them. You can.

You're the expert on your child

The first part of an FBA is asking the people who know the child. There are questionnaires for this, and the presenter says they work best when someone sits down with the parents and talks it through, rather than just handing them a form.

Her reason: "the parents are the experts of the children," and "they know what happens when nobody else is around."

She tells a story about a 9-year-old girl who refused tasks for at least a third of her day. When the school raised it, her parents said, "Well that's our daughter that's what she does." They'd lived with it for nine years. It had become normal. It was only when the team talked it through with them that everyone could see how much learning it was costing her.

The parents weren't wrong. They were used to it. That's why the conversation matters more than the form.

What good notes look like

The second part is watching. Each time the behavior happens, someone writes down what came right before, exactly what your child did, and what came right after.

The presenter is specific about what those notes should and shouldn't say, and it's worth knowing before you read them:

• No guessed feelings. "Do not assume emotion." Not "he didn't feel like doing it." Just what happened.
• No "there was no trigger." Something was going on in the room. In her words, "there's always an antecedent."
• Not just a label. "You would not want to just write down protest." Write what it looked like.
• The exact words. Write down "exactly what the person said in the moment," because that response might be what keeps the behavior going.

She also describes a notebook that goes home with the child every day and comes back to school. When a parent writes "he only got 2 hours of sleep last night," a hard morning isn't a mystery anymore.

One bad day proves nothing

Two cautions from this part of the session are worth taking into any meeting.

First, "you do need to have repeated observations to formulate a hypothesis." One incident, written up once, isn't a pattern.

Second, notes tend to point at attention. When a child hits or refuses, an adult always responds, so attention always shows up in the "after" column. That doesn't make it the reason. The presenter says to look at what came before just as carefully as what came after.

The test with the formal name

The third part is called a functional analysis. A trained clinician sets up short, controlled situations to test which reason is keeping the behavior going. To do that, they let the behavior work on purpose, so it can happen more during the test. The presenter says so plainly: "you will actually be reinforcing the problem behavior."

That's why her rule is firm: "you never want to conduct an FA without getting the approval from the parents first," and then the agency has to approve it too. At her program, only certified clinicians ran them. And for a child whose behavior is dangerous, like headbanging, she says "you might not even want to do the FA" if the first two parts already give the team enough to go on.

This isn't something to try at home. If a team proposes one for your child, ask who will run it, what exactly will happen, and what will keep your child safe.

Which behavior comes first

When there's more than one behavior, the team has to choose. The session's order:

1. Danger first. Anything that hurts your child or someone else, even if it only happens once a day.
2. Then what it costs your child. Is it "impeding on learning opportunities or socialization opportunities"?
3. Then what's likely to change, and whether the team has what it needs to change it.
4. And sometimes the quickest win. "Which one can we work on first to get an immediate change."

When the behavior changes shape

One story from the session explains something a lot of parents see. The presenter worked with a student who swept materials off the table when he was asked to do something. The team treated the sweeping, and it stopped. Then he started to sit back in his chair, fold his arms and refuse. He became, in her words, "compliantly non-compliant."

The team had treated what the behavior looked like, not what it was for. So it changed shape and kept its job. If you see that happen at home, you're not imagining it, and it's worth telling the team.

What to do while you wait

The assessment takes time. The session's answer for the meantime is what the presenter calls "the most basic intervention": neutral redirection.

If the behavior could hurt your child or someone else, keep everyone safe first. If your child's team hasn't given you a safety plan, ask for one.

This is for behavior that seems to be about getting your attention, or getting out of something you asked. If your child seems upset, in pain or overwhelmed, help them first. Stay close, keep things quiet and calm, and ask the team about it.

Otherwise, when the behavior happens, keep a neutral face, don't talk about it, and don't look at your child. Wait for it to stop. Then calmly bring your child back to what you asked, help if needed, and praise what goes well after.

If your child was after something, wait until things are calm, then have them ask for it in a way that works for them, with words, a sign, a picture or a device, before they get it. Don't do it right after the tantrum, she says, "because you could create a nasty behavior chain." Leave a small break in between.

It's a starting point, not the plan. The plan comes from the assessment.

Questions to take to the meeting

• What do you think this behavior gets my child, or gets them out of?
• How many times have you watched it, and over how many days?
• Can I see the notes? Do they say what was said and done, not just "protested"?
• What happens right before it, not only right after?
• Can we share a notebook, so you know how my child slept and ate that morning?
• If you're proposing a functional analysis, who runs it, what happens, and how will my child be kept safe?

If you are reading this outside the United States

The session was recorded in the United States, and "FBA" and "functional analysis" are the words used in American schools and clinics. Where you live, the process may have a different name, or be run by different professionals under different rules.

What transfers is the question. Before anyone tries to change what your child does, someone should be able to tell you what it's for. And you're one of the people who knows.

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This article is drawn from a recorded Special Learning course. It is general information for families, not clinical advice, and not a treatment recommendation for any individual. It does not describe the rules of any particular school district or country.

Special Learning is a BACB Authorized Continuing Education (ACE) Provider (OP-14-2437). Authorization as an ACE Provider does not imply endorsement or approval of the ACE event content by the BACB.