When addressing student behaviors it is easy to say “they're just being mean” or they know exactly what they are doing!” But to truly address the student’s behavior, we have to find out the “why?” Truth is they may not know what they are doing. They are reacting in the moment to stress. It is our job to find out what that stressor is and what triggers it.
Lathyrelle Isler, MSEd, SSP
The best way to do this is to do a deep dive into the student's background. It's best to look at the whole student as opposed to just the behavior. A functional behavior assessment, FBA, is the best way to address the behaviors. The FBA is an organized way to connect the dots to understanding a student's behavior.
How do you complete a FBA? The easy answer is with a thorough file review. This includes reviewing medical including hospitalizations and medications, social, and school history. This information provides a better picture of what the student has been and is going through. A team approach is the best for reviewing the student’s file. It is best to have a team of people who have expertise in the different areas, to help explain some of the information you might find. For instance a nurse for medical, social worker for social history, psychologist for testing, teacher for academics and most importantly the family, including the student, for any additional information.
Reviewing medical history can provide some insight into medical conditions such as sensory or physical issues like pain that could impact the students behaviors. If the student is taking medications, if the medication wears off depending on the medication, it can negatively impact the student’s behavior. If the student is on a new medication, this is important to know as well so that behaviors can be monitored for better or for worse. Most prescribing doctors do want feedback on how the student is doing while on medications so they can adjust accordingly. Hospitalizations can account for any missed schooling.
Social history can give insight to how family dynamics might factor into the student’s behavior. The parents or caregivers can provide details about home life and dynamics between family members. This area can provide the why to a lot of questions about how the student’s manage their emotions and relationships with others. The family may provide more information about the student’s triggers for their behaviors. The triggers are key in addressing the student’s behavior and providing them with insight into their own behaviors.
Lathyrelle Isler, MSEd, SSP
School history gives better insight on where the student’s academic strengths and weaknesses are; in addition to behavior and discipline history. There may be some connection between struggles in school and display of negative behaviors or in some cases, the student may have great grades and have negative behaviors. In either case, the team can address the behavior by scaffolding the curriculum accordingly. In regards to behavior and discipline history, patterns of behaviors are determined through examining timeframes and the types of the behaviors displayed. Additionally, gaps in education due to discipline ie out of school suspensions will also be revealed. This also can determine which interventions were successful for the student.
As the team reviews each area, explore how this information may be relevant to the behaviors you have observed from the student. For instance, if a student has homelessness, the student may display disruptive behaviors in the classroom during core academics because the student may have not learned the foundations of reading and math. Their frustration when presented with classwork due multiple moves early in their academic career. This may be written up in a behavior support plan as avoidance behavior.
Lathyrelle Isler, MSEd, SSP
Although the FBA may seem like a tedious task, it is very necessary. The information in the student’s history can be a direct connection to the student’s behavior. Found information can then be used to determine the reasons for the behaviors, triggers, interventions, and replacement behaviors to be used in the behavior support plan. So to provide support to your students with behaviors, an FBA is a great tool the team can use to help your students with their behaviors.
written by
Lathyrelle Isler
Lathyrelle Isler is a school psychologist specializing in social-emotional learning, early intervention, emotional disturbance, ADHD, autism, and down syndrome. She has been a program supervisor, academic coordinator, behavior specialist, case management coordinator, school psychologist, job coach, and mentor in school, healthcare, and community organization settings. Outside of her professional work, she enjoys traveling and exploring the food and music scene. Lathyrelle is a school psychologist with her Masters of Science in Education in School Psychology and has a respecialization certification in Applied Behavior Analysis.
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