What Is A Functional Behavioral Assessment?
A Functional Behavioral Assessment (FBA) is a combined set of strategies used by psychologists to help parents better understand what is causing their child’s inappropriate behavior. Whether it be in the classroom, in public, or at home, there is some form of stimuli that is causing your child to behave in a certain way. At Cognitive Behavioral Psychology Services of Long Island, near Syosset, Oyster Bay, and Commack, we can help you better understand the underlying causes of your child’s problem behavior and create a step-by-step plan that will help them cope with this behavior.
Why Is My Child Misbehaving?
Though there are many reasons why a child misbehaves, one reason is that they are trying to avoid something they don’t want to do in order to achieve a desired outcome; this varies from getting out of stressful situations, receiving attention, etc. The reason behind this is the task they are avoiding could be causing them frustration, stress, or pain and the only way they know how to communicate this level of frustration is through disruptive actions rather than with words.
This bad behavior does not mean that your child is bad. It simply highlights the fact that the child needs a little extra help coping with stressful situations they may face due to an inability to communicate effectively.
Steps of the FBA
Whether your child has a developmental disability or is currently going through particularly rough period in their life, an FBA can be extremely helpful in figuring out the underlying causes of their problem behavior so that you, as a parent, assist them in improving their behavior using basic behavioral principles. An FBA includes:
- Clearly defining what the problem behavior is.
- Collecting information on what is causing the behavior.
- Analyzing the information you’ve collected to help better predict when the bad behavior will occur.
- Establishing one or more hypothesesfor the causation of the behavior.
- Developing a plan of action that can be implemented to help rectify the problem behavior.
At Cognitive Behavioral Psychology Services of Long Island, we will work side-by-side with you and your child in order to establish a plan that improves their behavior and allows you to be the support system they need! Call us today to schedule an appointment.