Functional Behavior Assessment-What Data Do You Actually Need?
Collecting data can feel overwhelming, especially when it’s data on challenging behaviors in your classroom! You’ve probably found yourself frustrated after asking for help with a student and being told to “collect some data” and then never seeing that data actually used for anything. You’re sitting with your head on your desk, wondering what you need to do to get a functional behavior assessment done!
I hear you! When I was a special education teacher, I felt the same way. However, now I work with teachers, school psychologists, and other related service providers to help them collect the right data and effectively utilize it in meaningful ways. So, if you’re working through the FBA process or providing school-based behavior assessments and want to know about collecting the right kind of data, you’re in the right place.
In this post, we’ll break down the two critical types of data used in a Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA) — and how each of them can help you better understand the students’ behavior and set you up for a Behavior Intervention Plan (BIP) that actually works!
Why Data Collection Matters in a Functional Behavior Assessment
A Functional Behavior Assessment in public schools is not just a formality — it’s a diagnostic process that helps IEP teams understand the function of a student’s behavior. This could be a part of a special education evaluation or a tier 3 behavior intervention as a part of the RTI and PBIS behavior strategy in your school.
It doesn’t matter what kind of behavior you’re seeing. If the team has determined that conducting an FBA is the next step, you’ll need data to answer two key questions:
- Why is this behavior happening? Meaning, what is the function, what skills is the student missing, and how have we been reinforcing the behavior?
- How is this behavior changing over time? Is it improving, getting worse, or staying the same as we implement new positive behavior supports?
To answer these two questions, you need two different types of data!
1. Diagnostic Data: Understanding the Function of Behavior
If you’re at the point where you need an FBA for disruptive behaviors, the team probably hasn’t found the true function of the behavior.
The function is the answer to the question “Why is this happening?” Is the student trying to escape a task? Get peer attention? Avoid a sensory input? The list goes on.
All behavior (yes, I mean ALL) has a function. And, you can’t always tell what the function is just by watching the kid, even if you feel like you’ve seen it a million times!
Data that helps you determine the function is diagnostic data. This data also helps us understand what skills the student is lacking! Just like in academics, we don’t stop at “The student is struggling with reading.” We have to dive deeper and figure out the why. What part of reading are they struggling with? That’s where the instruction needs to happen! And it’s the same for behavior.
What does Diagnostic Data look like? This kind of behavior data collection usually includes:
ABC data (Antecedent → Behavior → Consequence)
This behavior analysis is a thoughtful look at what’s happening before and after the behavior to help pick out the behavior triggers in the classroom as well as the consequences that are likely reinforcing the behavior. Here, consequence isn’t the same as punishment. If you made a great joke at a party, people would laugh as a consequence, and that would make you more likely to keep making jokes. Whatever happens after the behavior has the potential to increase or decrease the chances that the student will do it again. ABC data helps us look for patterns here to figure out what we can control around the behavior to make it less likely.
The queen of all diagnostic behavior data collection is ABC data, hands down. And, I’ve got the perfect tool for you if you need to collect it for an FBA or special education behavior plan. If you want to take the guessing out of your FBAs, it starts with collecting and graphing your ABC data collection- and I’ve made that super easy for you! “This makes collecting data for an FBA so much easier! I am a new school psychologist, and this really helped me to focus on the important information to collect. I love that the form is editable.” -Kate L.
Behavior observation and anecdotal notes
We don’t always have the time or capacity to take ABC data every time we see the behavior, but jotting down quick anecdotal notes can support our understanding of the student’s behavior. It’s a great way to confirm that the behavior has consistent ways of showing up. When you take anecdotal notes, it should be more than “the student ran out of the room.” What was happening before? Who was around? What was the activity? Where did it start? These are the questions we want to think about when we’re doing behavior observation in schools. We can compare these notes with our ABC data to help bolster our understanding.
You can get a great tool for recording your observations and anecdotal notes right here!
Other data that helps us identify patterns of challenging behavior
Frequency, duration, and latency data can all also be diagnostic if we are thoughtful about how we collect it. Just a frequency count by itself isn’t that helpful in finding patterns. But, if we break the frequency (or duration or latency) data up by time of day, activity, location, staff or students who are nearby, or other factors that may impact the behavior, we may start to see patterns of when the behavior is most likely to happen. This info is incredibly helpful when conducting an FBA!
2. Progress Monitoring Data: Tracking Change Over Time
During the FBA, we need to start collecting progress monitoring data. This helps us in two ways:
- It shows how intense the behavior really is. Sometimes it’s more or less intense than we think.
- Once we have a completed FBA and a Behavior Intervention Plan, we can tell if the interventions are working. Without progress monitoring data, we can’t actually tell if we’re making progress.
This is where things like frequency, duration, or interval data come in. This kind of data answers questions like:
- How often does the behavior occur? How long does it last? This is your baseline data!
- Is the behavior decreasing or increasing over time?
- And most importantly, is what we are doing working?
This data helps teams measure if the behavior support strategies are working and adjust as needed.
To make it easy for you, here’s a great resource that makes collecting progress monitoring data simple, because it automatically graphs your data! It also comes comes with easy to follow video instructions on how to track your data and customize your graphs for easy sharing! You’ll be ready to WOW parents and admin at the next FBA or IEP Meeting!
To sum it up, you need two types of data for the two different goals of an FBA in schools.
| If your goal is… | Collect this type of data… |
| To understand the function of behavior | ABC data, observational notes, behavior triggers |
| To evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention | Frequency, duration, latency, or interval data depending on the behavior |
Both are essential, and both have different purposes.
Ready for the Behavior Intervention Plan? Learn more about that process here!
