Instruction in Functional Assessment, 2014a

Instruction in Functional Assessment Chapter 6
FACT Hand-Outs for Students
Purpose of the Activity:
To provide you with invaluable hands-on experience with an assessment/treatment
approach that has been experimentally-validated for use with a variety of
populations and problems.
To provide you with the tools that will be useful to you in your career.
To provide you with the skills and knowledge that potential employers seek!
Instructions:
1. You and your group members should first carefully read your selected research article
and summarize the main points. Pay close attention to the client’s behavior, procedure,
and results of the functional analysis conditions. Review those areas with your group
members once everyone has read the article or its summary.
2. Assign roles (alternate roles so that everyone has an opportunity to perform each role)
including client, researcher/practitioner, and trainer.
Client Role: Read the participant description section of the article you are assigned
and simulate the behaviors that are described. Scrutinize the graphical
presentations of the data and be prepared to approximately portray those levels
of the client’s behavior in each condition (e.g., demands, alone, attention, etc.).
Teacher/Therapist Role: Read and review the procedure for each functional
analysis condition. You will be implementing that procedure with your simulated
client and collecting data on that person’s behavior.
Director/Trainer Role: Your duties are to describe the client to your “audience,”
announce conditions, score the researcher’s behavior and provide performancebased
feedback to your researcher/practitioner evaluating his/her completion
of the steps involved in completing each FAn condition.
3. Practice conducting the functional assessment with performance-based feedback.
Director/Trainer introduces the problem situation and describes the client and
the setting.
Teacher/Therapist conducts the brief sessions and collects data on the client’s
behavior.
Director/Trainer announces the condition and collects data regarding researcher’s/practitioner’s
performance.
For each functional analysis condition (conduct it for only 5 min maximum),
the client and Teacher/Therapist simulate the process.
Review the procedures to conduct the condition. Conduct the condition. At the
end of simulated experience trainer provides constructive feedback to Teacher/
Therapist (i.e., praise aspects of the procedure done well and indicate areas
needing improvement). If needed (