Functional Assessment in School Settings

Abstract

The mandate that schools address the relationship between student behavior and classroom learning by means of functional behavioral assessment poses many challenges, since not all clinical procedures of proven effectiveness are practical in school settings. Compensatory options and new strategies and procedures are needed to bolster our present methodology so that the control and experimentation that characterizes clinical assessment is not abandoned. We must establish and support valid and effective methods that are practical in school settings and that adequately address the multifarious relationship between problem behavior and its social/environmental context. If we can do so, then the complex nature of functional behavioral assessment will not limit its value in school settings.