ABA Consultation and Services

Know the F.A.C.T.s.^SM

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Website: www.abaconsultation.com

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Know the F.A.C.T.s

Instructional methodology should involve being aware of, and using to the best of one's ability, functional alternatives to communication and treatments. 

While many goals focus on increasing academic, self-help, and vocational skills, some of the most obvious student behaviors are those considered to be socially inappropriate and targeted for decrease. Each person has a reason for exhibiting every behavior, no matter how socially intrusive, self-injurious, or aggressive these behaviors may be. Functional analysis (Iwata et al., 1982/1994) is an assessment used to uncover what maintains a problem behavior, and identify function-based treatments. It is important to identify what the student wants, so treatment involves not only decreasing the undesirable behavior, but also providing the student with a functional means by which to access the desired items or activities, or find an alternative means by which to deal with the item or activity being unavailable.  Teaching this more appropriate and functional response is called functional communication training (Carr & Durand, 1985).  It is referred to as functional communication because it explicitly communicates what the person wants.   

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Functional Alternatives to Communication and Treatment