When considering what new behaviors to teach a child, one must typically consider the behaviors that the child is currently exhibiting. Often, a goal might be to replace a current behavior, one which may be inadequate in effectively meeting the child's needs, or inappropriate in the current environment, especially those behaviors are severely maladaptive, aggressive, or self-injurious.

Modification of these behaviors is most effective if the motivation behind the behaviors can be determined, because, once that motivation is known, once the need that the child is trying to fill is ascertained, a replacement behavior can be taught to meet that need more effectively and appropriately. There are two tools that can be used to help determine the motivation behind a particular behavior, a functional behavior assessment or a functional behavior analysis. A functional behavior assessment is a precise description of a behavior, its context, and its consequences, with the intent of better understanding the behavior and those factors influencing it. A functional behavior analysis begins as an assessment, but includes the added step of systematically altering the antecedents to and consequences of the behavior to determine precisely which are the driving forces behind that behavior.

A functional behavior analysis is, essentially, the application of the scientific method in examining behavior. While formal FBAs are often used, and at times required, within school settings, especially for the severely maladaptive behaviors that some children may exhibit, more informal behavior analyses can be used routinely to examine any behavior that might need some modification.

The first step in a functional behavior analysis is to carefully observe and precisely describe the behavior that the child is exhibiting and the events and stimuli in the environment both before and after that behavior. Often, this careful description is referred to as identifying the ABCs of a particular behavior:

• Antecedent -- the stimulus or stimuli to which the child responds
• Behavior -- the behavior that we see exhibited by the child
• Consequence -- the stimulus or stimuli that the child receives (or that he is stopped being subjected to) as a result of his behavior

One should schedule opportunities to observe and describe the behavior across a broad sample of environments and occasions. The data that are collected from these observations should then be analyzed; one should look for trends in the occurrences of that behavior, for stimuli that may be evoking it or the needs that the child is attempting to fill by exhibiting this behavior. Then, one can form hypotheses about the behavior and the function that it is serving for the child and can begin to challenge those hypotheses by systematically altering elements of the environment, to determine which are, in fact, influencing the behavior. The testing can help one conclude just what the child is attempting to accomplish with his behavior, just what the motivation, the purpose of that behavior is.

Behavior can serve any of a number of purposes for the individual. Below is a list of some of those motivations.

• To gain attention from someone in the environment.
• To gain a tangible consequence: a treat, a token, money, a favorite toy or video.
• To gain a sensory consequence: to get warmer if one is cold, or cooler if hot, to gain some tactile, taste, auditory, visual, proprioceptive, or vestibular consequence.
• To self-regulate one's emotions: to calm down if agitated, to raise one's arousal level if it is depressed.
• To escape from or avoid an undesirable situation. Typically these behaviors are in response to or anticipation of requests to work, play, or communicate, or a means to avoid environments which may have uncomfortable stimuli. Escape and avoidance are similar needs, but it is important that one recognize the difference between them as they may manifest themselves at different times. For example, if one were working with a child who becomes agitated every day during reading groups, the initial hypothesis may be that he finds reading groups undesirable and is attempting to escape from that situation. However, the child may, in fact, be attempting to avoid the task or event that comes after reading groups. If reading groups always come right before lunch, and the lunchroom is typically noisy and over-stimulating for the child, the child may well begin to exhibit some behavior as a protest to the thought of having to spend time in that environment.
• To make a comment or declaration about one's environment, perceptions, or emotions.
• To fill a habitual need. Typically, however, most behaviors that have been labeled habitual, are indeed attempts to fill the one of the above needs, or were at one time and are no longer very effective. That is not to say, of course, that a behavior can not be solely a ritual.

I have included some data collection and analysis sheets for functional behavioral analyses in the documents section of this site.