FBA - What to expect?

[ShanDiann]

Met with school on Friday. They want to do a functional behavior analysis. Is this a good thing? What does it consist of? Still no plan in place for when he explodes, which is frustrating me. I honestly hate even sending him to school. I am on pins and needles all week.

 

[preventlady]

If done right, this could be a good thing. I'm professionally trained as a Licensed Professional Counselor, working with families and children; and also a parent of a 14 year old difficult child and 12 year old easy child. This reply is from my professional hat - a functional behavioral analysis should consist of at least one member of the treatment team observing your child for several hours if not days - then gathering all the important players in your child's life to discuss the strengths and challenges of your child. They should be identifying the disruptive behaviors, discussing what they believe is motivating them, then using your child's strengths discuss possible better interventions. They would begin to implement the new interventions and track the frequence of the disruptive behavior to see if it is helping to decrease the outbursts, etc. Hopefully, it will be a positive experience with a good outcome.

 

[TeDo]

It's a good thing for them to do. They will do classroom observations & get input from teachers, etc about difficult child's behavior and see if they can figure out what triggers it. Then they can come up with plans to prevent it if possible and how to deal with it when it does happen. In order to make a plan, they need as much info as possible about the behaviors. This is a very good thing. Otherwise they'd be "putting a piece of furniture together without any directions and no customer support line". They are doing the right thing. Be patient.