We typically use Hanley’s Practical Functional Assessment (PFA’s) approach. Hanley’s Open-Ended FA is a great starting point to use with parents, teachers, and other caregivers.

Also check out Hanley’s Preschool Life Skills Questionnaire – For younger students, it is a really great tool to detect some more challenging areas where students may be engaging in problem behavior. In addition to the Open-Ended FA interview, this preschool life skills questionnaire can also provide you with information to create your IISCA.

Then use the results from the open-ended interview to conduct a Practical Functional Assessment (PFA). It is a type of functional analysis that starts with students in a happy, relaxed, and engaged place (HRE). It allows us to establish a rapport with our students by offering them many preferred items/activities. Then, after 4-5 minutes of HRE, the examiner tries to turn on the negative behavior just very briefly and then turn it back off again. Actually, the examiner is not even looking for the negative behavior. In the PFA, it is enough (and preferred) for the student to exhibit only the precursor behavior. This only needs to be done 3-5 times and then the PFA is over.

The PFA quickly and safely allows you to see and understand the contingencies of problem behavior in place. Hanley argues that if you can turn on and off the behavior, you understand it. No need to do any other kind of Functional Analysis. No more test conditions and control conditions.

The goal of thePFA is 2-fold:

#1 – Establish rapport with your student.

#2 – To turn on and off the behavior quickly and safely.

The PFA is graphed on the “IISCA.” The IISCA stands for an interview-informed synthesized contingency analysis.

Check out Hanley’s website for data sheets and more information:

• IISCA Design Form
• Tips for Designing IISCA
• IISCA Data Sheet
• IISCA Graphing Template

For information on Hanley’s Skill-Based Treatment (SBT), check out How to ABA’s Bx Resource page.