How to Conduct a Functional Behavior Assessment

Dr. Greg Hanley returns to Behavioral Observations for another round of fun conversation on the assessment and treatment of severe problem behavior. 

This show gets into the weeds of the Practical Functional Assessment/Skills-Based Treatment Process right away, so if you have nuanc-ey questions or concerns about PFA/SBT, this is the show for you. 

In this segment of the show, we discuss the changes his company, FTF, had to roll with over the last few years, what he and his colleagues are up to now. We spend a considerably amount of time discussing what they've learned about functional assessment and treatment, and how their process has evolved over the years, especially in terms of the types of individuals who benefit from these interventions, as well as those who do not. 

Perhaps my favorite part of the conversation was when we discussed the complex nature of Skills-Based Treatment. To this end, Greg talked about the kind of training one ideally needs to be able to implement an SBT session successfully. Long story short, it's more than teaching someone to say, "My Way." 

Speaking of training, FTF offers a variety of on-demand virtual trainings, in-person live workshops, and short and long-term consultation engagements. 

Greg also mentioned numerous papers, most of which you can find here. If there are others not represented on this page, let me know and I'll add those to the show notes. 

What we didn't get into is the outreach FTF is making with using this process in public school settings. We also didn't get a chance to get into the SBT data collection app that his colleagues at Hi-Rasmus has created, but you can check out here. 

OK, back to the interview... after a lengthy nuts and bolts discussion of the what makes for successful SBT interventions, we broadened the lens to discuss many of the so-called 'hot topics,' in Behavior Analysis these days. This included:

• The influence of social media groups. 
• Overly rigid rule adherence, in which we spend a fair bit of time talking about token systems.
• Greg's perspective on Trauma-informed and Trauma-assumed ABA.
• Other aspects of "Hyphenated-ABA" that are being discussed. 
• Practical perspectives on assent... and if you're like me, and often think about the limitations of assent-based models of treatment, this will be helpful (and by the way, check out this article by Dr. Paulie Gavoni and Steve Ward), and, 
• The use of extinction. 

Greg also opened up a bit about how he almost left the field of ABA. You read that correctly. You'll have to listen to the show to hear about this in his own words. 

Greg was extremely generous with his time, and even stuck around to answer questions that I solicited from Patreon members. As you might imagine, there were a lot of great questions, and the answers were punctuated with a few really funny stories that you won't want to miss. 

All of this to say that I enjoyed this conversation immensely, and I hope you do too :-)

This podcast is brought to you by

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• The aforementioned Verbal Behavior Conference. This is conference is as equally fun as it is informative, and BehaviorLive makes it available virtually as well, so I hope to see you there!
• Behavior University. Their mission is to provide university quality professional development for the busy Behavior Analyst. Learn about their CEU offerings, including their brand new 8-hour Supervision Course, as well as their RBT offerings over at behavioruniversity.com/observations.