DEFINITIONS

"Students who receive special education as a result of behavior problems must have individualized education programs that include behavior goals, objectives, and intervention plans. While current laws driving special education do not require specific procedures and plans for these students, it is recommended that their IEPs be based on functional behavioral assessments and include proactive positive behavioral interventions and supports.? ~ Positive Behavioral Interventions & Supports (OSEP)

Functional Behavioral Assessment -

• A process for gathering broad and specific information about a student's behavior in order to identify the function or purpose that the behavior serves. The information gathered in this process will be utilized to develop interventions to change behaviors of concern and to teach new behavior patterns. This is the first step in designing a behavior support plan incorporating positive behavioral interventions

• This process involves information gathering through record reviews, interviews, and observations and the development of summary statements that describe the patterns identified. According to O'Neill and colleagues (1997), primary outcomes of the functional assessment process include: (Positive Behavior Support)

  • A clear description of the problem behaviors

  • Events, times, and situations that predict when behaviors will and will not occur (i.e., setting events)

  • Consequences that maintain the problem behaviors (i.e., functions)

  • Summary statements or hypotheses

  • Direct observation data to support the hypotheses

• The following guidelines are intended to provide educational teams, including families, educators, students, and administrators, with a framework for conducting a functional behavioral assessment and developing a behavior support plan as it relates to the following statutes in IDEA

  • The team must explore the need for strategies and support systems to address any behavior that may impede the learning of the child with the disability or the learning of his or her peers;

  • In response to disciplinary actions by school personnel, when a student is facing a mandatory expulsion, the IEP team must meet to formulate a functional behavioral assessment plan to collect data for developing a behavioral intervention plan. If a behavioral intervention plan already exists, the team must review and revise it (as necessary), to ensure that it addresses the behavior upon which disciplinary action is predicated; and

Positive Behavioral Support-

• Positive behavior support is a collaborative, assessment-based process to develop effective, individualized interventions for individuals with challenging behavior. Support plans focus on proactive and educative approaches. (Positive Behavior Support)

• Positive behavior support (PBS) involves the assessment and reengineering of environments so people with problem behaviors experience reductions in their problem behaviors and increase social, personal, and professional quality in their lives.

• "Positive Behavioral Support (PBS) is an empirically validated, function-based approach to eliminate challenging behaviors and replace them with prosocial skills.  Use of PBS decreases the need for more intrusive or aversive interventions (i.e., punishment or suspension) and can lead to both systemic as well as individualized change." ~ NASP Resources