Special Education Guide: What is an FBA?

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What is it?

FBA stands for a Functional Behavioral Analysis. It is a fancy way of saying we take a LOT of data to figure out what is motivating a student’s behavior. An FBA can be done when the student is exhibiting dangerous behaviors, but it does not have to be.

If a student is consistently falling asleep in class, or doing another task avoidance behavior you can do an FBA for that. You can use it to determine if there are specific situations or tasks that are prompting the behavior.

When do we use it?

We perform an FBA when we have a student that has behavior challenges. The purpose of the FBA is to determine what is causing them to act the way that they are acting so that we can determine how to fix it.

When you are performing an FBA, you are taking notes as to what is constantly happening with the students’ behavior. Your goal is to find a pattern, i.e. “Susie always does X after Y happens.” Typically this is done with some sort of ABC chart.

Finding these patterns and determining what causes the behavior can help you to figure out a way to prevent the behaviors from happening in the future.

What is the benefit?

When you can create a plan to deal with a student’s behavior that is specific to them and their triggers, you are going to be more successful in your interventions. You can also create specific IEP goals that will focus on the bigger issues. From an FBA you typically use the information to create a BIP or a Behavior Intervention Plan. This plan is specifically designed for the student to modify their behaviors in the school and at home.