Name:

Koh Jia Min Student Number: 2169812 Topic Code: DSRS3221

Name and Student Number: Koh Jia Min (2169812)

Assignment 1: Functional Behaviour Assessment

Student-Centred Functional Behaviour Assessment Profile

The “Student-Centered Functional Behaviour Assessment Profile” developed by

Bambara, Janney & Snell (2015) is used to gather relevant information of the

targeted student’s quality of life, strengths and needs through various indirect

resources. Part of the profile gathered would summarise the challenging behaviour

that is of concern. Family of student, teachers and therapists are called upon to

share their views, priorities and visions of the student to complete this profile.

(Appendix A) This completed profile serves as the foundation of the whole Positive

Behaviour Support Plan.

1. Information about Student

Sara is currently 4 years 4 months old, and was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum

Disorder (ASD) at the age of 3. She attends a 4 hours programme in a Kindergarten,

along with 15 other neurotypical peers, on every Monday and Tuesday. She attends

Early Intervention Programme (EIP) on every Wednesday to Friday for two hours to

help equip her with social and communication skills. At the EIP, she was observed

to have learnt to make choices between two items that are presented to her and

could verbally request for “more” of the desired items or activities. She is also able to

execute simple 2-step verbal instructions such as “push in your chair and close the

door”, “throw this away and come back”.

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2. Classroom Climate (Appendix B)

Classroom physical space is well delineated with visual cue to allow students to

easily identify each teaching focus area. Frequently used art and toy materials are

easily accessible to students. Teachers are able to monitor students from any

position in the room. Arrangement of room allows different types of learning to take

place such as big group, small group and independent learning. Classroom

procedures and instructional routines are well established with the presentation of

visual cues and work system to remind students of what they have to do. For

example, the student’s photo is displayed at a particular layer of the shelf to remind

her the designated area to place her personal belongings. In addition, there is a

portable schedule board to remind the student, which work areas she will be

transiting to.

With regards to supervision and monitoring of students’ behaviour, there are

currently no strategies or plans to counter the behavioural problems that arise in the

classroom. Rules and expectations are reminded verbally everyday as a prevention

tool. However, students’ behaviours are not monitored to examine the effectiveness

of the verbal reminder. Students do not receive specific error correction from

teacher, and lack opportunity to respond appropriately to corrections.

Lastly, classroom activities and materials are prepared beforehand and schedule is

consistent with effective time management. Curriculum content and instructional

strategies are individualised after discussions with their respective IEP team

members and presented to each student based on their learning needs. Teachers

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should consider student’s engagement level during activities to make future

modification.

3. Academics and Communication

Sara is able to read her name, some high frequency vocabulary words. She is able

to complete simple matching and sorting tasks such as matching uppercase to

lowercase letters or sorting pictures into their different categories. She enjoys any

activities with the theme of animals, especially books with animals as the characters.

However, she struggles with writing demands or activities that requires fine motor

skills. She also has difficulty tolerating unplanned or new activities that are not of her

interests.

Sara speaks in 2-4 words phrases and/or sentences but due to her speech disorder

(difficulties with articulation of some sounds); the words may sometimes be

unintelligible to friends and unfamiliar adults. This issue is more prominent when she

is frustrated, even familiar teachers may not be able to comprehend what she is

trying to express or convey. She is able to spontaneously comment on objects or

events that is happening around her, though, it is not observed whether she is

directing or initiating these speeches at her teachers or peers.

She usually communicates that she needs help when asked or when teacher

prompted her with the visual cue “Teacher, help me.” and hardly initiates requests

unless she was taught that she could ask for help in that particular situation. She will

make noises to express her frustration when she could not open a biscuit package or

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would cry loudly if teacher did not intervene or prompt her. To get the desired items

or preferred activities that she wants, she would either grab from her peer or take it

directly. With continuous prompting using a visual cue, she is able to verbalise her

wants and needs.

In efforts to avoid an activity, Sara would communicate by protesting in different

ways. The behaviours that have been observed at this current time of report includes

walk away, use both of her index fingers to open her mouth wide, land hard on the

floor and roll, crawl under the table, scream continuously or cry uncontrollably.

4. Medical, Health and Sensory Concerns

No major health or medical concerns, however, it is noted that she is underweight

and her weight percentile is lower than children of her age. She is also sensitive to

tactile and vestibular inputs. For example, she does not like painting activities, as

she cannot tolerate the texture of paint. She also avoids using certain gym

equipment such as the lycra swing and trampoline. During the recent assessment

with the occupational therapist, it is found that she has delayed gross and fine

motor skills that result from low muscle tone and strength, as she did not have

enough input and exposure.

5. Quality of Life

Sara lives with her parents, grandparents, younger sister and domestic helper. Her

parents are both supportive and attended many autism-related courses to

understand more about her conditions. They also communicate with her teachers

and therapists to find out more ways to support her at home and take their time to

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educate and reinforce the concepts that she learned in school. There was not much

interactions observed between Sara and her peers both at school and outside of

school. Even though she does greet them spontaneously and know each of her

friend’s names. She engages mostly in solitary play.

Sara works well during structured activities and routines when the expectations of

what she has to do are presented in visual cues or steps. She struggles mostly with

large group and unfamiliar activities or tasks. She is given opportunities to make

choices during free choice in school and at home. For example, the toys that she

wants to play or what activities she would like to transit to next. When she is not in

school, she spends most of her free time at home. She hardly goes out and if she

does, parents mentioned that it would be a short 2 to 3 hours trip because she has

difficulty tolerating certain activities such as taking the train, walking around the

shopping mall, and etc. The trip has to be specific where parents have to pre-empt

her about what they will see and do.

Sara enjoys any topics or materials relating to animals and she likes singing and

listening to children’s music. However, her interests are limited to these, it is

challenging for her to accept any activities that are not of her interests.

6. Target behaviours and Past Interventions

Target behaviour definition:

Crawl under the table and remain there (until an adult intervenes): She would

push the chair that she was sitting on and quickly crawl under the table, she may

scream, cry, use both her index fingers to pull her mouth wide open or simply not do

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anything under the table. She will only stop and sit on her chair when an adult

intervenes.

A new episode of targeted behaviour is counted when she is directed back to her

chair and sits down. There has been no current behaviour support plan or record of

past interventions in regards to this behaviour.

When such behaviour happens, the teacher or adult has to show her the schedule

(what she is supposed to be doing now) and inform her what is next. She is usually

redirected back to the task (chair) or to the next one with full or partial physical

support; where teacher has to gently nudge her out or sometimes carry her back to

the chair. Her behaviour under the table may escalate if the adult asks her to use her

words or provides her with too much verbal directions of what she has to do.

Identify Function of Behaviour

Different measures were used to ascertain the function(s) that maintains Sara’s

problem behaviour. Both indirect and direct assessments were implemented to

complete this functional behavioural assessment. The assessment tools are

presented below.

Indirect Assessments

Motivation Assessment Scale (MAS; Delaney & Durand, 1986)

There were a total of three sets of MAS that were completed by Sara’s class

teachers and occupational therapist. The results for all three were consistent with

“Escape” as the primary motivation of the behaviour, i.e. crawl under the table and

remain there (until an adult intervenes). (Appendix C)

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Problem Behaviour Questionnaire (PBQ; Lewis, Scott & Sugai, 1994)

PBQ were also distributed to the same individuals with the same problem behaviour

identified. The results were consistent; it suggested that Sara is escaping from adults

in particular to performing specific academic activity or task. (Appendix D)

Direct Assessments

Scatter Plot (Bambara, Janney & Snell, 2015)

A completed scatter plot allows users to find the specific period of time that the

behaviour most occurs and thereby conduct direct observations accordingly

(Bambara, Janney & Snell, 2015). It also allows users to know the relative frequency

of the behaviour. The results from the scatter plot over a course of three days

showed that behaviour of crawling under the table appears mostly during

“Independent seat work”(ISW) and “1:1 Work with teacher” (WWT). Within three

days of observations, it happened 9 times; 5 times during ISW and 3 times during

WWT. (Appendix E)

Antecedent, Behaviour, Consequence Chart (ABC Chart)

As there are different tasks during ISW and WWT, three ABC observations were

conducted in school to determine if it is any particular task that Sara may be

escaping from as well as possible antecedents and consequences to the behaviour

(two samples of the pre-writing tasks are provided in Appendix H). The observations

revealed that in specific to pre-writing activity where it involves her to hold a writing

tool to trace or write, she will engage in the problem behaviour. A summary is as

follows:

Setting Event Antecedent Behaviour Consequence Function

• Indepen Sara is Crawls under • Receives Sara is escaping

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dent presented the table and attention or avoiding from

seat with pre- remains there and the particular task
work or writing support
Work activity from
with sheet and teacher
teacher writing tool • Removal
• Delayed of task
fine
motor
skills
(low
muscle
tone and
strength)

(Appendix F)

Generate Hypotheses Statement

Using data collected for indirect and direct means, the following hypothesis is

developed to explain the targeted behaviour:

When Sara has delayed fine motor skills (setting event) and is presented with activity

sheets that require her to use a writing tool during independent seat work or 1:1 work

with teacher (antecedents), she will crawl under the table and remain there

(behaviour) until the teacher provides support in completing or removal of task

(consequence). Therefore, the function of the behaviour is to escape or avoid pre-

writing tasks (function).

Collect Baseline Data

Event recording will be selected for the data collection method. Event recording is a

method that documents the frequency of behaviour within a given time period (Bicard

& Bicard, 2012). Whenever the targeted behaviour occurs, the observer will record it

down. The objective of this collection method is to increase or decrease the number

of occurrences of a problem behaviour (Special Connections, n.d.).

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As the scatter plot data has revealed the periods that the student engages in the

behaviour, it will be easy for the observer to use such collection way. On top of that,

due to the nature of the behaviour, it has a clear beginning and end which event

recording is best for such behaviour (Hadaway & Brue, 2015). Event-recording form

will be simple for the observer to keep up as compared to other methods since

Sara’s targeted behaviour do not occur frequently throughout the day. It will provide

the observer to focus and engage in her own tasks in between the occurrences of

the behaviour and will not interfere with other ongoing activities.

Below are the instructions on how the data was collected using the Event Recording

form:

1. Fill in the necessary information at the top of the form i.e. name, observer,

dates of observations, setting and the target behaviour)

2. Fill in the date and time periods in the box.

3. Tally the number of times the behaviour occurs according to the time interval

column.

4. Record down the total number of times the behaviour occurred in a day.

5. On the last day of observation, calculate the total number of occurrences for

each time interval and the total number of times the behaviour occurred within

the 9 days.

6. Observer has to note that a new episode of targeted behaviour is counted

when she is directed back to the chair and sits down.

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Event Recording Form

Name of Student: Sara

Observer: Ms. Jiamin
Date: 12 October 2016 to 28 October 2016 (Every Wed, Thu and Fri of the week)
Setting(s): Ruby Classroom
Target Behaviour: Crawl under the table and remain there (until an adult
intervenes)
Instructions:
1. Fill in the necessary information at the top of the form.
2. Fill in the date and time periods in the box below.
3. Tally the number of times the behaviour occurs according to the time interval column.
4. Record down the total number of times the behaviour occurred in a day.
5. On the last day of observation, calculate the total number of occurrences for each time
interval and the total number of times the behaviour occurred within the 9 days.
6. Observer has to note that a new episode of targeted behaviour is counted when she is
directed back to the chair and sits down.

Date: Time: 9.05am to Time: 10.20am to Total number of

9.25am 10.45am times behaviour

Frequency Frequency occurred in a day

12/10/2016 // / 3

13/10/2016 // / 3

14/10/2016 / / 2

19/10/2016 // / 3

20/10/2016 / / 2

21/10/2016 / / 2

26/10/2016 / / 2

27/10/2016 / // 3

28/10/2016 / / 2

Total (according to 12 10 22

time intervals)

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Graph reflecting baseline data

Based on the data collected in the event recording, a graph that reflects the baseline

data has been constructed. The reported frequencies are the total number of daily

occurrences in a day. See figure 1.

Figure 1.

Daily occurrence of behaviour

3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
Daily occurrence of
1
behaviour
0.5
0

An intervention plan based on the information collected and the principles of positive

behaviour support will be developed to work on the problem behaviour in the next

part of the paper.

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References

Bambara, L.M., Janney, R., & Snell, M.E. (2015). Behaviour support: Teachers’

guides to inclusive practices. (3rd ed.). Baltimore, Maryland: Paul H. Brookes.

Bicard, S.C., Bicard, D.F. & the IRIS Center. (2012). Measuring Behavior. Retrieved

from https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/wp

content/uploads/pdf_case_studies/ics_measbeh.pdf

Hadaway, S. M. & Brue, A.W. (2015). Practitioner’s guide to functional behavioral

assessment: Process, purpose, planning and prevention. Cham: Springer

International Publishing.

Special Connections. (n.d.). Event recording. Retrieved from

http://www.specialconnections.ku.edu/?q=assessment/data_based_decision

making/teacher_tools/event_recording

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Appendix A
Student-Centered Functional
Behaviour Assessment Profile
• Classroom Climate
• Academics and Communication
• Medical, Health and Sensory
Concerns
• Quality of Life
• Target Behaviours and Past
Interventions

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Appendix B
Classroom Organization and
Management Inventory

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Appendix C
3 sets of Motivation Assessment
Scale (MAS)

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Appendix D
3 Sets of Problem Behaviour
Questionnaire (PBQ)

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Appendix E
Scatter Plot

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Appendix F
• Antecedent-Behaviour-
Consequence (ABC)
Observations for 3 days
• ABC Checklist

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Appendix G
Consent Form

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Appendix H
Samples of Pre-writing tasks

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