• Watch the Unit 4 Lecture. (Video Transcripts)

Within this unit, you have learned that Functional Behavior Assessment is a process that involves indirect methods, direct descriptive methods, and, at times, functional analysis.

For this discussion, you are going to focus on antecedent conditions that influence behavior. Create a scenario and answer the following questions:

• Describe discriminative stimuli and how this influences the behavior in your hypothetical scenario.
• Describe motivating operations and how this influences the behavior in your hypothetical scenario.

Peer Responses: Respond to two classmates’ primary posts by identifying whether the motivating operation in your peers’ hypothetical scenario is unconditioned or conditioned and whether it is having an abolishing or an establishing effect on the target behavior.

Reading and Resources

Read Chapter 3 in Conducting School-Based Functional Behavioral Assessments: A Practitioner’s Guide: “Conceptual Foundations of Functional Behavior Assessment”

This chapter reviews the fundamental concepts of Applied Behavior Analysis as they apply to Functional Behavior Assessment.

Read Chapter 4 in Conducting School-Based Functional Behavioral Assessments: A Practitioner’s Guide: “Behavior Analysis of Medical Conditions, Emotions, and Thoughts”

TEXTBOOKS

Steege, M.W., Pratt, J.L., Wickerd, G., Guare, R., & Watson, T.S. (2009). Conducting School-Based Functional Behavioral Assessments: A Practitioner’s Guide. 3^rd Edition.