1
Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA)
Michael Benhar, Ph.D.
I.
Christian is a 4 ½ year old boy who has been in the Preschool now for almost
2 school years. He is receiving special services for speech and language, OT,
and PT. He has been in the “ABA room” for the past 2 years receiving
approximately 1 hour a day of instruction via the discrete trial method based
on the program “A Work in Progress.” Christian is cognitively delayed, no
verbal communication and exhibits symptoms that are congruent with a
diagnosis of Autism. He tends to perseverate, and has self-stimulatory
behaviors including rocking back and forth, chewing on his finger and making
wailing sounds. Christian is perceived as a handful by the teacher, teaching
assistants and the clinicians that work with him, especially due to his selfstimulatory behaviors, which detract from him attending to learning.
II.
Christian recently began to bite other children due to no apparent antecedent.
An informal intervention was constructed by the school psychologist intern to
have the teacher and teaching assistants firmly instruct Christian immediately
after biting another child to do “no biting,” but this was obviously ineffective
after just several days. The children’s parents were naturally upset with this
behavior and the principal instructed the psychology department to construct a
behavioral intervention plan to diminish his biting behavior immediately or he
would be in danger of being discharged.
III.
The school psychologist employed a functional behavioral analysis of the
biting behavior to determine the function of the behavior. It was unclear if
Christian was biting due to hunger or possibly to convey his feelings, since he
does not have verbal communicative skills. In other words, the latter
possibility may be the way Christian manifests his wishes or anger at other
children due to a dearth of verbal communication. After three days of
behavioral observations (baseline frequency data too) that the teaching
assistants observed utilizing the ABC recording method, it was determined
that there was no apparent antecedent that caused him to bite other children.
The staff were instructed to keep track of the number of bitings and inform the
school psychologist, who recorded the data.
IV.
Since it was determined by the ABC observation method that there was no
apparent antecedent that trigged his biting of other children, it was decided
that since the firm affirmation to desist from biting was ineffective, a “quick
and dirtier” method was needed immediately. Based on the research
literature, it was decided that the teacher or teaching assistants would squirt
some lemon juice into Christian’s mouth ( acting as a punisher) immediately
after he bit another child, but it would not be used for his self-stimulatory
behavior of placing his hand in his mouth. Prior to the implementation of this
intervention, it was determined that Christian found the lemon juice
punishing. Interestingly, another child with severe cognitive impairment got a
hold of the lemon juice, drank it and appeared to enjoy it. The staff was
instructed that when working with him in a group setting or one-on-one, they
should have the lemon juice next to them but out of Christian’s sight due to
the classical conditioning effect in which the bottle of lemon juice will take on
the characteristics of the punishing lemon juice (becoming a conditioned
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stimulus evoking a conditioned response). They were also instructed to
continue to firmly instruct Christian to do “no biting,” when given the lemon
juice as a punisher.
V.
The baseline data indicated that Christian manifested biting behaviors for
three consecutive days. The first day of baseline data, Christian had a
frequency count of 3 bitings; second day, 2; and third day of 3. Immediately
after the intervention took place, the frequency counts plummeted to 0 for the
next 4 days (see chart below).
Number of
Occurrences of
Biting Behavior
Number of Days
2
3
4
5
1
3
2
3
baseline data
6
7
0
0
0
intervention data
0
Christian's Behavioral Plan
baseline
Number of Bitings
5
intervention
4
3
2
1
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Day
VI.
The program was extremely effective in extinguishing the biting of other
children and the staff. The program remains in place and there have only been
two instances of Christian biting other children or the staff over the past
several months that was due to the staff not buying more lemon juice when it
ran out. The staff was reminded to carry the lemon juice around with them,
which they stopped doing to their false belief that the behavior had been
completely extinguished. Due to the success of diminishing if not completely
extinguishing the biting behavior of other children, the staff has asked the
psychology department to reduce the self-stimulatory behaviors of Christian
placing his hands in his mouth, and at times, biting himself, which has been
more difficult to diminish or extinguish.
_________________________
Michael Benhar, Ph.D.
Certified School Psychologist