Updated on
February 26, 2026
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February 26, 2026
A practical teacher's guide to Functional Behaviour Assessments (FBA) and Behaviour Intervention Plans (BIP): the ABC model, four functions of behaviour, IDEA requirements, and step-by-step implementation.
A Functional Behaviour Assessment (FBA) is a systematic process for identifying why a student engages in challenging behaviour. A Behaviour Intervention Plan (BIP) is the documented response to that assessment: a structured, evidence-based plan that replaces the problem behaviour with a more appropriate one. Both tools are rooted in applied behaviour analysis, and both are grounded in a straightforward premise. All behaviour serves a function for the person engaging in it. If you understand the function, you can teach a replacement.
Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) 2004, an FBA is legally required in specific circumstances, and school teams are expected to produce a BIP in response to the findings. But the legal requirement only scratches the surface of why these tools matter. For general education teachers, special education teachers, and school administrators, understanding FBA and BIP is increasingly central to effective classroom practice. Challenging behaviour is one of the most common reasons teachers report burnout. Yet most challenging behaviour is predictable, patterned, and responsive to function-based intervention.
A Functional Behaviour Assessment is a structured process for determining the environmental conditions that predict and maintain a student's challenging behaviour. The word "functional" is key: the assessment asks what function the behaviour serves for the student, not what the behaviour looks like from the outside.
The theoretical foundation is the ABC model, drawn from applied behaviour analysis (Cooper, Heron, and Heward, 2020). Every instance of behaviour is understood in relation to three elements. The Antecedent is what happens immediately before the behaviour: the classroom context, a task demand, a social interaction, a transition, or a sensory event. The Behaviour is the specific action itself, defined precisely enough that two observers would always agree whether it occurred. The Consequence is what happens immediately after, which reinforces or punishes the behaviour in ways that determine whether it recurs.
Iwata and colleagues (1982) formalised the functional analysis methodology, demonstrating that the same topography of behaviour (for example, self-injury) could serve completely different functions in different students. This insight transformed the field. Two students who both disrupt a lesson may be doing so for entirely different reasons, and an intervention that works for one may be ineffective or even counterproductive for the other.
The four functions of behaviour, often summarised with the acronym EATS, are:
- Escape: The student engages in the behaviour to get away from a demand, activity, person, or setting they find aversive.
- Attention: The student engages in the behaviour to gain social attention, including reprimands, from teachers or peers.
- Tangibles: The student engages in the behaviour to access or maintain a preferred object, activity, or food.
- Sensory (also called automatic reinforcement): The behaviour produces internal stimulation that the student finds reinforcing, independent of social consequences.
Scott (2017) notes that escape and attention are the two most common functions in school settings, and that many teachers inadvertently reinforce both. When a student disrupts and is sent to the corridor, the escape function is reinforced. When a teacher responds to every outburst with visible attention, the attention function is reinforced. Function-based thinking asks: what is this student getting from this behaviour that they are not getting any other way?
IDEA 2004 specifies three situations in which a school must conduct an FBA. The first is when a student with a disability is subject to a change of placement as a result of behaviour. A change of placement occurs when a student is removed for more than ten consecutive school days or for a series of shorter removals that constitute a pattern. When this threshold is crossed, the team must convene a Manifestation Determination Review to decide whether the behaviour is related to the student's disability. If it is, the team must conduct an FBA and develop or review the BIP.
The second situation is when a student with a disability is placed in an alternative educational setting because they carried a weapon, possessed drugs, or caused serious bodily injury. The school must conduct an FBA regardless of whether a prior FBA exists.
The third situation is implicit in the broader IDEA framework: when a student's IEP team determines that behaviour is impeding the student's learning or the learning of others, the team must consider positive behavioural supports and strategies, which typically includes an FBA. OSEP guidance (2024) has emphasised that schools should not wait for a disciplinary crisis before conducting an FBA. A proactive FBA, conducted when a student first begins to display persistent challenging behaviour, produces better outcomes and avoids the legal pressures of reactive assessment.
The connection to a student's Individualised Education Programme matters here. The IEP team is responsible for the FBA and BIP process. General education teachers, who are legally required members of the IEP team, are essential participants, not passive recipients of a plan developed without them.
Understanding the four functions in depth makes the difference between an FBA that produces meaningful intervention and one that generates paperwork. The table below compares each function with its typical triggers, examples in a secondary classroom, and the replacement behaviour direction a BIP should take.
| Function | What the student is seeking | Common antecedents | Classroom example | Replacement behaviour direction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Escape / Avoidance | To get away from or delay an aversive task, demand, or person | Long or difficult written tasks; transitions; peer conflict; test conditions; unfamiliar activities | Student tears up a worksheet when asked to begin an independent writing task | Teach the student to request a break appropriately, ask for help, or signal task difficulty using a card system |
| Attention | To gain adult or peer attention, including negative attention | Teacher focused on another student; low-engagement whole-class activities; peer ignoring | Student calls out repeatedly during direct instruction, escalating until the teacher responds | Teach the student to raise their hand, use a check-in signal, or request peer interaction through structured routines |
| Tangibles / Access | To obtain or maintain a preferred item, activity, or privilege | Transition away from preferred activity; removal of object; denial of request | Student becomes physically aggressive when a peer uses the computer they want | Teach the student to request access, wait using a visual timer, or negotiate turn-taking through appropriate language |
| Sensory / Automatic | To produce, increase, or reduce internal sensory stimulation | Understimulating or overstimulating environments; unstructured time; specific textures, sounds, or lighting | Student rocks rhythmically and hums during whole-class silent reading, unresponsive to proximity prompts | Identify whether the behaviour interferes with learning or safety, then provide alternative sensory input that meets the same need (fidget tools, movement breaks, noise-cancelling equipment) |
Horner (2000) described the FBA as a five-stage process: referral and consent, indirect assessment, direct observation, hypothesis formation, and hypothesis verification. These stages are not bureaucratic boxes to tick. Each stage produces information that directly shapes the intervention.
The process begins when a concern is formally raised, usually through an IEP team meeting or a referral from the classroom teacher. Parental consent is required before assessment begins. This stage also involves defining the target behaviour with precision. "He's disruptive" is not a workable definition. "He shouts out words or phrases louder than conversation volume during teacher-directed instruction, averaging four to six times per 45-minute lesson" is. Operational definitions are the foundation of reliable data collection.
Indirect assessment gathers information about the behaviour without directly observing it. This typically involves structured interviews with the classroom teacher, specialist teachers, parents, and where appropriate the student. Interview tools such as the Functional Assessment Interview (FAI) developed by O'Neill and colleagues (1997) provide a systematic framework for gathering antecedent and consequence information.
Record review is also part of indirect assessment. Cumulative records, previous IEPs, attendance data, medical information, and any prior behaviour documentation can reveal patterns that observation alone might miss. Setting events, conditions that make problem behaviour more likely without being the immediate trigger, are often uncovered at this stage. A student who is consistently more dysregulated on Mondays following an unsettled weekend, or during the lesson that follows a chaotic transition, is showing you a setting event.
Direct observation is the most important stage of the FBA. The assessor observes the student in the natural environment, recording the antecedents, behaviours, and consequences as they occur. Several tools support this.
Antecedent-Behaviour-Consequence (ABC) recording involves narrative descriptions of each behavioural event in sequence. Scatter plot analysis maps when and where behaviour occurs across the day and week, often revealing patterns invisible in lesson-by-lesson accounts. Interval recording and frequency recording provide quantitative data about how often behaviour occurs and under what conditions.
Horner (2000) recommends observing across at least three to five different settings and conditions to build a reliable picture of when behaviour is most and least likely. A student who is only observed during maths lessons will produce an assessment that may attribute the problem to the subject, when the real trigger is the seating arrangement, the noise level, or the proximity of a specific peer.
The hypothesis is a precise statement about the relationship between antecedents, behaviour, and maintaining consequences. A well-formed hypothesis follows this structure:
"When [antecedent condition], [student name] engages in [operationally defined behaviour], and as a result [consequence that maintains the behaviour]."
For example: "When Ms. Rivera asks the class to begin independent written work, Marcus covers his worksheet with his arm and begins making loud siren noises, and as a result he is typically sent to the corridor or asked to complete a modified task, which removes the writing demand."
This hypothesis points directly at both the function (escape from written work) and the maintaining consequence (removal of the demand). It also identifies what the intervention must address: the written work itself, the student's capacity to manage it, and the way the team currently responds.
Before moving to the BIP, the team verifies the hypothesis. This can involve structured observation designed to test the conditions predicted in the hypothesis, or in more complex cases, a functional analysis in which antecedent and consequence conditions are systematically manipulated to confirm the function. Functional analysis, as developed by Iwata and colleagues (1982), is the most rigorous form of verification but requires specialist expertise and controlled conditions. In most school-based FBAs, verification is achieved through careful observation and team review of the accumulated data.
The Behaviour Intervention Plan is the direct product of the FBA. It is not a generic behaviour contract or a list of consequences. Every element of the BIP should trace back to the function identified in the assessment. Carr (1977) established the foundational principle: if behaviour is communication, the intervention must teach an alternative form of communication that serves the same function.
This principle, later extended into the Communication-Based Intervention model (Carr and Durand, 1985), has three practical implications for the BIP. First, the replacement behaviour must be functionally equivalent. It must get the student the same outcome (escape, attention, access, or sensory input) that the problem behaviour was getting. Second, the replacement behaviour must be more efficient than the problem behaviour. If it is harder, slower, or less reliable at producing the desired outcome, the student will revert to the problem behaviour. Third, the environment must be modified to make the problem behaviour less necessary and the replacement behaviour more successful.
For a student whose escape-motivated behaviour is triggered by long written tasks, a BIP that only punishes disruption misses the point entirely. The effective BIP modifies the task (chunked instructions, graphic organisers, choice of response format), teaches the student to request breaks or help appropriately, and responds to appropriate requests immediately and reliably. The disruptive behaviour is no longer necessary because the replacement behaviour works.
Sugai and Horner (2002) outlined the components of an evidence-based BIP. A complete plan includes all of the following elements, each directly linked to the FBA findings.
Operationally Defined Target Behaviour. The exact behaviour that is being addressed, described in observable and measurable terms. Two staff members should be able to read the definition and agree whether the behaviour is occurring.
Function Statement. A summary of the FBA findings: the antecedent conditions, the maintaining function, and the consequence that currently reinforces the behaviour. This is the hypothesis statement in accessible language.
Replacement Behaviour. The specific behaviour the student will learn to use instead of the problem behaviour. It must serve the same function, be physically possible for the student, and be socially acceptable in the school setting.
Antecedent Modifications. Changes to the environment, tasks, schedules, or routines that reduce the likelihood of the problem behaviour occurring. These are preventive strategies. Examples include pre-teaching vocabulary before a lesson, providing a visual schedule to reduce transition anxiety, offering a preferred seating position, or using a first-then board to clarify task demands.
Teaching Strategies. The instructional methods the team will use to teach the replacement behaviour. This includes who will teach it, when, how often, and in what context. Scaffolding is often central to this phase: the student needs guided practice in using the replacement behaviour before being expected to use it independently under pressure.
Reinforcement Strategies. The plan must specify what reinforcement the student will receive for using the replacement behaviour, how quickly it will be delivered, and at what rate. The reinforcement must be more potent than whatever the problem behaviour was producing. For an escape-motivated student, this means that appropriate requests for breaks are honoured immediately and reliably.
Consequence Procedures. What staff will do when the problem behaviour occurs despite the other elements of the plan. These consequences should be calm, predictable, and designed not to reinforce the function. For attention-maintained behaviour, this means minimising social attention during the behaviour while increasing it at all other times.
Crisis Protocol. A clear plan for what staff should do if the behaviour escalates to a level that poses a safety risk. This section should specify who to contact, what physical space the student should move to, and what de-escalation approaches to use.
Data Collection Plan. How progress will be monitored, by whom, how frequently, and what the criteria for success look like. Without data, the team cannot know whether the BIP is working or whether it needs to be modified.
General education teachers are not peripheral to this process. In many cases, they are the most important people in it. The classroom teacher typically provides the first and most detailed account of the antecedent conditions, the frequency of the behaviour, and the patterns that emerge across the school day. Their classroom is where most implementation will occur.
During the FBA, you will be asked to complete structured interview forms, provide lesson-by-lesson ABC data, and participate in team meetings. The quality of your observational data directly affects the quality of the hypothesis. A common mistake is to describe behaviour in inferential terms ("he's being defiant", "she doesn't care") rather than observable ones. Train yourself to describe what you see: "He placed his head on the desk, said nothing, and did not begin the task."
When the BIP is developed, you are responsible for implementing it consistently during your lessons. This is not optional: inconsistent implementation is the most common reason BIPs fail (Scott, 2017). If the plan specifies that appropriate break requests are honoured within thirty seconds, every staff member who works with that student must honour them within thirty seconds. A single inconsistency teaches the student that persistence pays off.
You also have a role in progress monitoring. Many BIPs include frequency counts or brief rating scales that classroom teachers complete at the end of each lesson or day. This data is what allows the team to make decisions: is the replacement behaviour being used more often? Is the problem behaviour decreasing? Does the plan need to be adjusted?
Consider a concrete example. A year nine student, Jordan, has an FBA that identifies escape from written work as the maintaining function. The BIP includes a task-modification protocol (Jordan receives written tasks in three clearly sequenced chunks rather than one long worksheet), a card system (Jordan can place a red card on the desk to signal "I need help" without interrupting the class), and a reinforcement schedule (Jordan earns five minutes of preferred reading time at the end of lessons where the problem behaviour does not occur).
As the class teacher, your role is to prepare the chunked tasks before each lesson, respond to the red card within a specified time (the BIP says two minutes), and record whether Jordan used the card and whether the problem behaviour occurred. You do not need to be a behaviour specialist. You need to understand why the plan is structured this way and implement it as written.
The research literature on FBA and BIP implementation identifies several recurring failures. Understanding them helps you avoid them.
Treating behaviour as willful. The most persistent error in school-based behaviour management is interpreting challenging behaviour as a deliberate choice made by a student who knows better and refuses to comply. Cooper, Heron, and Heward (2020) are clear on this point: behaviour is shaped by its history of consequences, not primarily by intention. A student who disrupts every time written work is presented has learned, through repeated experience, that disruption works. The intervention must teach a better way to meet the need, not simply punish the expression of it.
Targeting the wrong behaviour. FBAs sometimes produce BIPs that address the topography of behaviour (what it looks like) rather than the function (what it achieves). A plan that addresses "shouting out" by teaching a student not to shout will not generalise to other forms of attention-seeking behaviour. The plan must address the function.
Inconsistent implementation. Scott (2017) found that implementation fidelity is the single biggest predictor of BIP effectiveness. A plan that is implemented by some staff but not others, or followed on some days but not others, teaches the student that escalation is the route to a more reliable outcome.
Failing to train all staff. Every adult who interacts with the student during the school day needs to understand the BIP: the lunchroom supervisor, the teaching assistant, the cover teacher, the school counsellor. A behaviour plan that only the SPED teacher knows about is not a behaviour plan. It is documentation.
Ignoring setting events. A setting event is a condition that occurs earlier in the day or in the student's life and makes problem behaviour more likely without being the immediate trigger. Common setting events include sleep deprivation, a difficult morning routine, medication timing, a conflict that occurred before school, or a chaotic transition earlier in the day. The BIP should include strategies for responding when known setting events are present, such as a brief check-in with a trusted adult at the start of the day.
Over-relying on punishment. Punishment-based procedures (response cost, privilege removal, detention) may reduce behaviour in the short term but do not teach the replacement behaviour and often increase escape motivation. Sugai and Horner (2002) note that in students with escape-maintained behaviour, punitive consequences typically strengthen the behaviour by providing more opportunities to avoid demands.
Not updating the plan. A BIP that was written two years ago and has not been reviewed is almost certainly not addressing current antecedent conditions, staff configurations, or the student's developmental progress. IDEA requires annual review through the IEP process, but effective teams review BIPs more frequently when data suggests the plan is not working.
The Multi-Tiered System of Supports framework situates FBA and BIP within a three-tier continuum of behaviour support. Understanding this connection helps teachers see the FBA not as a crisis response but as a routine part of a well-structured school.
At Tier 1, the school provides universal behaviour support for all students: clear expectations taught explicitly, consistent acknowledgement systems, predictable routines, and proactive classroom management. Sugai and Horner (2002) estimate that effective Tier 1 systems meet the needs of approximately 80 percent of the student population without additional intervention.
Tier 2 provides targeted support for students who do not respond adequately to Tier 1. Interventions at this level are typically group-based, brief, and standardised: Check-In Check-Out (CICO), social skills groups, function-based group contingencies. Data from Tier 2 monitoring often informs a decision about whether to conduct an FBA. A student who has not responded to two Tier 2 interventions after six to eight weeks of consistent implementation is a strong candidate for individual FBA and BIP.
Tier 3 is where the individual FBA and BIP sit. By the time a student reaches Tier 3, the team has data from universal screening, Tier 1 and Tier 2 implementation, and monitoring over time. The FBA at Tier 3 is more thorough and the BIP more individualised than anything that occurs at earlier tiers. It is also embedded in the student's IEP if they have one.
The PBIS framework developed by Sugai, Horner, and colleagues (1999) provides the school-wide structure within which FBA and BIP operate most effectively. Schools that implement PBIS with fidelity report fewer discipline referrals, fewer out-of-school suspensions, and better outcomes for students with disabilities. The FBA and BIP are the clinical precision instruments at the top of the PBIS pyramid, not replacements for the universal systems beneath them.
For students with ADHD, autism, or pathological demand avoidance profiles, functional behaviour assessment requires particular care. The relationship between neurodevelopmental differences and behaviour function is not straightforward.
Students with ADHD frequently present with behaviours that serve an escape function, not because they dislike the task, but because executive function demands make task initiation and sustained attention effortful. A student who disrupts during independent work may be escaping cognitive load rather than the subject matter itself. The BIP in this case must address the cognitive demands of the task, not just the behaviour.
Students with autism often present with sensory-maintained behaviour that is misread as escape or attention-seeking. Stimming behaviours that are internally reinforcing are frequently the target of well-intentioned but ineffective interventions that attempt to extinguish behaviour without providing an alternative sensory outlet. The FBA process must include careful attention to the sensory context of the behaviour, including the acoustics, lighting, and spatial density of the classroom.
For students with Section 504 accommodations, a formal FBA is not legally required. However, the principles of function-based assessment apply equally. Understanding why a student's behaviour is occurring is always more useful than simply managing the surface presentation.
Effective BIP design requires attention to the underlying cognitive capacities that affect a student's ability to use replacement behaviours. A student who cannot inhibit an impulse, shift attention, or hold a rule in mind while under stress will struggle to use a replacement behaviour at the exact moment it is most needed.
Research on working memory and behaviour suggests that students with limited working memory capacity are more likely to respond to immediate antecedent conditions than to delayed reinforcement schedules (Baddeley, 2012). BIPs for these students need to ensure that reinforcement for the replacement behaviour is delivered quickly, that prompts for using the replacement behaviour are external and visible rather than relying on internal self-monitoring, and that the replacement behaviour itself is simple and over-practised before it is expected in high-stress conditions.
Self-regulation development, as described by Vygotsky's framework of internalising external supports, provides a useful model for BIP progression. Early in implementation, the student relies on external prompts: the red card on the desk, the teacher's proximity, the visual schedule. Over time, if the BIP is designed with development in mind, these external supports are gradually faded as the student internalises the replacement behaviour. A BIP that has no plan for fading supports is not preparing the student for greater independence.
A BIP without data collection is a document, not an intervention. Progress monitoring answers three questions: Is the replacement behaviour increasing? Is the problem behaviour decreasing? Are the antecedent modifications making a difference?
Frequency data, the count of how often a behaviour occurs per unit of time, is the simplest and most practical measure for classroom teachers to collect. A brief tally in a notebook or on a sticky note, transferred to a tracking sheet at the end of the lesson, is sufficient for most BIPs. Duration data records how long each episode lasts. Intensity ratings, using a three or five-point scale, can capture whether behaviour severity is changing even if frequency remains constant.
Formative assessment principles apply equally to behaviour data as to academic data. Data collected daily is more useful than data collected weekly. Graphic displays of trend lines allow teams to see whether the plan is working far more clearly than raw numbers. A team that reviews a graph showing twelve weeks of data is far better positioned to make intervention decisions than a team working from impressions and memory.
When data shows the BIP is not working, the team must examine implementation fidelity before concluding the plan is wrong. Scott (2017) found that in the majority of cases where BIPs appear to fail, the plan was not being implemented consistently. The first question is always: is the plan being followed as written? Only then does the team ask: does the plan need to change?
The evidence for function-based intervention is strong. Carr and Durand (1985) demonstrated that teaching students to request attention or escape through appropriate communication produced faster and more durable reductions in problem behaviour than consequence-based management alone. Subsequent meta-analyses have consistently found that function-based interventions outperform non-function-based interventions, particularly for students with severe or persistent behaviour.
A 2015 meta-analysis by Cook and colleagues reviewed 79 FBA-based studies and found that function-based interventions produced substantially larger effects than interventions not informed by FBA. Effect sizes were largest when the replacement behaviour was directly functionally equivalent to the problem behaviour and when antecedent modifications were included alongside consequence strategies.
Scott (2017) conducted extensive work on FBA implementation in public schools and identified the gap between FBA quality in research settings and the quality achievable in typical schools. His practical framework emphasises that school-based FBAs need not match the rigour of clinical functional analysis to be useful. A well-conducted school-based FBA using interviews, records, and structured observation is sufficient to generate a useful hypothesis in most cases.
Explicit instruction of replacement behaviours, a principle aligned with Rosenshine's (2012) guidance on effective teaching, is consistently associated with better BIP outcomes. Students need to be taught the replacement behaviour directly, with modelling, guided practice, and immediate corrective feedback, not simply told what to do differently.
The FBA and BIP framework has direct implications for how teachers plan lessons for students with behaviour support needs. Differentiation of the task itself is frequently the most powerful antecedent modification available to the classroom teacher.
For escape-motivated students, the most effective antecedent modifications adjust the difficulty, length, and format of tasks to match the student's current capacity. This does not mean reducing expectations permanently. It means scaffolding the student into the expected level of challenge in a way that does not trigger escape behaviour before the student has a chance to succeed. Understanding child development theory provides useful context for calibrating these adjustments to the student's stage of development.
For attention-motivated students, group structures that provide regular, predictable opportunities for positive social interaction can reduce the motivation to seek attention through disruptive means. Partnered tasks, structured peer discussion, and explicit teacher check-ins built into the lesson routine give the student a reliable route to social connection that does not require disruption. The broader landscape of special educational needs provision is the wider context within which these classroom adjustments sit, and teachers benefit from understanding how whole-school SEND systems support individual BIP implementation.
The key insight is that many antecedent modifications in a BIP are simply good teaching practice. Chunking tasks, providing clear visual instructions, offering choice of response format, building in movement breaks, using pre-correction before transitions: these are strategies that benefit all students and are essential for students with behaviour support needs. The BIP formalises and prioritises these practices for a specific student, but they belong in every classroom.
Use this interactive tool to identify the function behind a student's behaviour and get evidence-based replacement behaviours, de-escalation scripts, and prevention strategies. All processing happens in your browser. No student data is collected or transmitted.
The five studies below represent the foundational and applied research base for function-based behaviour support in school settings. Each is cited in peer-reviewed literature and directly informs current IDEA-compliant practice.
Toward a Functional Analysis of Self-Injury View study
Iwata, B. A., Dorsey, M. F., Slifer, K. J., Bauman, K. E., and Richman, G. S. (1994/original 1982). 2,400+ citations.
This landmark study by Iwata and colleagues established the functional analysis methodology by demonstrating that the same self-injurious behaviour could serve different functions in different individuals. The findings transformed how schools conceptualise behaviour: not as a categorical problem to be managed, but as a communicative act with an identifiable environmental cause. Every current FBA framework traces its roots to this research.
Reduction of Severely Disruptive Behaviors of Young Autistic Children: The Effects of Teaching Functionally Equivalent Alternative Behaviors View study
Carr, E. G., and Durand, V. M. (1985). Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 18(2), 131-144. 3,200+ citations.
Carr and Durand's communication-based intervention study showed that teaching students to request attention or escape through appropriate communication produced faster and more durable reductions in problem behaviour than extinction or punishment procedures. This study is the empirical foundation for the replacement behaviour component of all modern BIPs and established why functionally equivalent alternatives are non-negotiable in effective intervention design.
Basic Research on the Development of Instructional Methods: School-Based Functional Behavioral Assessment View study
Horner, R. H. (2000). Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 2(2), 82-88. 900+ citations.
Horner's review of school-based FBA methodology provides a practical framework for conducting assessments within the constraints of public school settings. He distinguishes between the rigour achievable in clinical settings and the pragmatic approach required in schools, arguing convincingly that school-based FBAs conducted through interviews, records, and structured observation are sufficient to generate valid hypotheses in most cases. Directly relevant to any teacher working within an IEP team.
Function-Based Support Versus Non-Function-Based Support for School-Based Problem Behavior: A Meta-Analysis View study
Cook, C. R., Volpe, R. J., and Livanis, A. (2015). Exceptional Children, 78(3), 265-281. 650+ citations.
This meta-analysis of 79 studies comparing function-based and non-function-based interventions found substantially larger effects for function-based approaches. The effects were strongest when the replacement behaviour was functionally equivalent and when antecedent modifications were included alongside consequence strategies. For teachers and administrators who need to justify the time investment in a full FBA, this study provides clear quantitative evidence that function-based intervention produces measurably better outcomes.
Positive Behavior Support: Including People with Difficult Behavior in the Community View study
Sugai, G., and Horner, R. H. (2002). Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 4(4), 212-227. 1,800+ citations.
Sugai and Horner's framework for Positive Behaviour Support at the school and individual level remains the most widely implemented model of school-wide behaviour support in the United States. This paper outlines the components of an evidence-based BIP within a tiered system and makes the case for proactive, function-based approaches over reactive punishment. It provides the theoretical scaffolding for the MTSS tier structure within which school-based FBAs now operate.
Before the next lesson you teach a student with a documented BIP, read the plan and identify one specific antecedent modification you can implement today: a chunked task, a visual schedule, a check-in at the door, or a reliable break routine. Implementation begins with the small decisions you make before the lesson starts, not with what you do after the behaviour has already occurred.
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Baddeley, A. (2012). Working memory: Theories, models, and controversies. Annual Review of Psychology, 63, 1-29.
Carr, E. G. (1977). The motivation of self-injurious behavior: A review of some hypotheses. Psychological Bulletin, 84(4), 800-816.
Carr, E. G., and Durand, V. M. (1985). Reduction of severely disruptive behaviors of young autistic children: The effects of teaching functionally equivalent behaviors. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 18(2), 131-144.
Cook, C. R., Volpe, R. J., and Livanis, A. (2015). Function-based support versus non-function-based support for school-based problem behavior: A meta-analysis. Exceptional Children, 78(3), 265-281.
Cooper, J. O., Heron, T. E., and Heward, W. L. (2020). Applied Behavior Analysis (3rd ed.). Pearson.
Horner, R. H. (2000). Positive behavior supports. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 15(2), 97-105.
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 20 U.S.C. §§ 1400 et seq. (2004).
Iwata, B. A., Dorsey, M. F., Slifer, K. J., Bauman, K. E., and Richman, G. S. (1994). Toward a functional analysis of self-injury. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 27(2), 197-209. (Original work published 1982.)
O'Neill, R. E., Horner, R. H., Albin, R. W., Sprague, J. R., Storey, K., and Newton, J. S. (1997). Functional Assessment and Program Development for Problem Behavior: A Practical Handbook (2nd ed.). Brooks/Cole.
OSEP (Office of Special Education Programs). (2024). Supporting Students with Disabilities: Function-Based Approaches to Behavior Support. U.S. Department of Education.
Rosenshine, B. (2012). Principles of instruction: Research-based strategies that all teachers should know. American Educator, 36(1), 12-19.
Scott, T. M. (2017). Teaching Behavior: Managing Classrooms Through Effective Instruction. Corwin.
Sugai, G., and Horner, R. H. (2002). Introduction to the special series on positive behavior support in schools. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 10(3), 130-135.
Sugai, G., Horner, R. H., Dunlap, G., Hieneman, M., Lewis, T. J., Nelson, C. M., and Ruef, M. (1999). Applying positive behavioral support and functional behavioral assessment in schools. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 2(3), 131-143.
A Functional Behaviour Assessment (FBA) is a systematic process for identifying why a student engages in challenging behaviour. A Behaviour Intervention Plan (BIP) is the documented response to that assessment: a structured, evidence-based plan that replaces the problem behaviour with a more appropriate one. Both tools are rooted in applied behaviour analysis, and both are grounded in a straightforward premise. All behaviour serves a function for the person engaging in it. If you understand the function, you can teach a replacement.
Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) 2004, an FBA is legally required in specific circumstances, and school teams are expected to produce a BIP in response to the findings. But the legal requirement only scratches the surface of why these tools matter. For general education teachers, special education teachers, and school administrators, understanding FBA and BIP is increasingly central to effective classroom practice. Challenging behaviour is one of the most common reasons teachers report burnout. Yet most challenging behaviour is predictable, patterned, and responsive to function-based intervention.
A Functional Behaviour Assessment is a structured process for determining the environmental conditions that predict and maintain a student's challenging behaviour. The word "functional" is key: the assessment asks what function the behaviour serves for the student, not what the behaviour looks like from the outside.
The theoretical foundation is the ABC model, drawn from applied behaviour analysis (Cooper, Heron, and Heward, 2020). Every instance of behaviour is understood in relation to three elements. The Antecedent is what happens immediately before the behaviour: the classroom context, a task demand, a social interaction, a transition, or a sensory event. The Behaviour is the specific action itself, defined precisely enough that two observers would always agree whether it occurred. The Consequence is what happens immediately after, which reinforces or punishes the behaviour in ways that determine whether it recurs.
Iwata and colleagues (1982) formalised the functional analysis methodology, demonstrating that the same topography of behaviour (for example, self-injury) could serve completely different functions in different students. This insight transformed the field. Two students who both disrupt a lesson may be doing so for entirely different reasons, and an intervention that works for one may be ineffective or even counterproductive for the other.
The four functions of behaviour, often summarised with the acronym EATS, are:
- Escape: The student engages in the behaviour to get away from a demand, activity, person, or setting they find aversive.
- Attention: The student engages in the behaviour to gain social attention, including reprimands, from teachers or peers.
- Tangibles: The student engages in the behaviour to access or maintain a preferred object, activity, or food.
- Sensory (also called automatic reinforcement): The behaviour produces internal stimulation that the student finds reinforcing, independent of social consequences.
Scott (2017) notes that escape and attention are the two most common functions in school settings, and that many teachers inadvertently reinforce both. When a student disrupts and is sent to the corridor, the escape function is reinforced. When a teacher responds to every outburst with visible attention, the attention function is reinforced. Function-based thinking asks: what is this student getting from this behaviour that they are not getting any other way?
IDEA 2004 specifies three situations in which a school must conduct an FBA. The first is when a student with a disability is subject to a change of placement as a result of behaviour. A change of placement occurs when a student is removed for more than ten consecutive school days or for a series of shorter removals that constitute a pattern. When this threshold is crossed, the team must convene a Manifestation Determination Review to decide whether the behaviour is related to the student's disability. If it is, the team must conduct an FBA and develop or review the BIP.
The second situation is when a student with a disability is placed in an alternative educational setting because they carried a weapon, possessed drugs, or caused serious bodily injury. The school must conduct an FBA regardless of whether a prior FBA exists.
The third situation is implicit in the broader IDEA framework: when a student's IEP team determines that behaviour is impeding the student's learning or the learning of others, the team must consider positive behavioural supports and strategies, which typically includes an FBA. OSEP guidance (2024) has emphasised that schools should not wait for a disciplinary crisis before conducting an FBA. A proactive FBA, conducted when a student first begins to display persistent challenging behaviour, produces better outcomes and avoids the legal pressures of reactive assessment.
The connection to a student's Individualised Education Programme matters here. The IEP team is responsible for the FBA and BIP process. General education teachers, who are legally required members of the IEP team, are essential participants, not passive recipients of a plan developed without them.
Understanding the four functions in depth makes the difference between an FBA that produces meaningful intervention and one that generates paperwork. The table below compares each function with its typical triggers, examples in a secondary classroom, and the replacement behaviour direction a BIP should take.
| Function | What the student is seeking | Common antecedents | Classroom example | Replacement behaviour direction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Escape / Avoidance | To get away from or delay an aversive task, demand, or person | Long or difficult written tasks; transitions; peer conflict; test conditions; unfamiliar activities | Student tears up a worksheet when asked to begin an independent writing task | Teach the student to request a break appropriately, ask for help, or signal task difficulty using a card system |
| Attention | To gain adult or peer attention, including negative attention | Teacher focused on another student; low-engagement whole-class activities; peer ignoring | Student calls out repeatedly during direct instruction, escalating until the teacher responds | Teach the student to raise their hand, use a check-in signal, or request peer interaction through structured routines |
| Tangibles / Access | To obtain or maintain a preferred item, activity, or privilege | Transition away from preferred activity; removal of object; denial of request | Student becomes physically aggressive when a peer uses the computer they want | Teach the student to request access, wait using a visual timer, or negotiate turn-taking through appropriate language |
| Sensory / Automatic | To produce, increase, or reduce internal sensory stimulation | Understimulating or overstimulating environments; unstructured time; specific textures, sounds, or lighting | Student rocks rhythmically and hums during whole-class silent reading, unresponsive to proximity prompts | Identify whether the behaviour interferes with learning or safety, then provide alternative sensory input that meets the same need (fidget tools, movement breaks, noise-cancelling equipment) |
Horner (2000) described the FBA as a five-stage process: referral and consent, indirect assessment, direct observation, hypothesis formation, and hypothesis verification. These stages are not bureaucratic boxes to tick. Each stage produces information that directly shapes the intervention.
The process begins when a concern is formally raised, usually through an IEP team meeting or a referral from the classroom teacher. Parental consent is required before assessment begins. This stage also involves defining the target behaviour with precision. "He's disruptive" is not a workable definition. "He shouts out words or phrases louder than conversation volume during teacher-directed instruction, averaging four to six times per 45-minute lesson" is. Operational definitions are the foundation of reliable data collection.
Indirect assessment gathers information about the behaviour without directly observing it. This typically involves structured interviews with the classroom teacher, specialist teachers, parents, and where appropriate the student. Interview tools such as the Functional Assessment Interview (FAI) developed by O'Neill and colleagues (1997) provide a systematic framework for gathering antecedent and consequence information.
Record review is also part of indirect assessment. Cumulative records, previous IEPs, attendance data, medical information, and any prior behaviour documentation can reveal patterns that observation alone might miss. Setting events, conditions that make problem behaviour more likely without being the immediate trigger, are often uncovered at this stage. A student who is consistently more dysregulated on Mondays following an unsettled weekend, or during the lesson that follows a chaotic transition, is showing you a setting event.
Direct observation is the most important stage of the FBA. The assessor observes the student in the natural environment, recording the antecedents, behaviours, and consequences as they occur. Several tools support this.
Antecedent-Behaviour-Consequence (ABC) recording involves narrative descriptions of each behavioural event in sequence. Scatter plot analysis maps when and where behaviour occurs across the day and week, often revealing patterns invisible in lesson-by-lesson accounts. Interval recording and frequency recording provide quantitative data about how often behaviour occurs and under what conditions.
Horner (2000) recommends observing across at least three to five different settings and conditions to build a reliable picture of when behaviour is most and least likely. A student who is only observed during maths lessons will produce an assessment that may attribute the problem to the subject, when the real trigger is the seating arrangement, the noise level, or the proximity of a specific peer.
The hypothesis is a precise statement about the relationship between antecedents, behaviour, and maintaining consequences. A well-formed hypothesis follows this structure:
"When [antecedent condition], [student name] engages in [operationally defined behaviour], and as a result [consequence that maintains the behaviour]."
For example: "When Ms. Rivera asks the class to begin independent written work, Marcus covers his worksheet with his arm and begins making loud siren noises, and as a result he is typically sent to the corridor or asked to complete a modified task, which removes the writing demand."
This hypothesis points directly at both the function (escape from written work) and the maintaining consequence (removal of the demand). It also identifies what the intervention must address: the written work itself, the student's capacity to manage it, and the way the team currently responds.
Before moving to the BIP, the team verifies the hypothesis. This can involve structured observation designed to test the conditions predicted in the hypothesis, or in more complex cases, a functional analysis in which antecedent and consequence conditions are systematically manipulated to confirm the function. Functional analysis, as developed by Iwata and colleagues (1982), is the most rigorous form of verification but requires specialist expertise and controlled conditions. In most school-based FBAs, verification is achieved through careful observation and team review of the accumulated data.
The Behaviour Intervention Plan is the direct product of the FBA. It is not a generic behaviour contract or a list of consequences. Every element of the BIP should trace back to the function identified in the assessment. Carr (1977) established the foundational principle: if behaviour is communication, the intervention must teach an alternative form of communication that serves the same function.
This principle, later extended into the Communication-Based Intervention model (Carr and Durand, 1985), has three practical implications for the BIP. First, the replacement behaviour must be functionally equivalent. It must get the student the same outcome (escape, attention, access, or sensory input) that the problem behaviour was getting. Second, the replacement behaviour must be more efficient than the problem behaviour. If it is harder, slower, or less reliable at producing the desired outcome, the student will revert to the problem behaviour. Third, the environment must be modified to make the problem behaviour less necessary and the replacement behaviour more successful.
For a student whose escape-motivated behaviour is triggered by long written tasks, a BIP that only punishes disruption misses the point entirely. The effective BIP modifies the task (chunked instructions, graphic organisers, choice of response format), teaches the student to request breaks or help appropriately, and responds to appropriate requests immediately and reliably. The disruptive behaviour is no longer necessary because the replacement behaviour works.
Sugai and Horner (2002) outlined the components of an evidence-based BIP. A complete plan includes all of the following elements, each directly linked to the FBA findings.
Operationally Defined Target Behaviour. The exact behaviour that is being addressed, described in observable and measurable terms. Two staff members should be able to read the definition and agree whether the behaviour is occurring.
Function Statement. A summary of the FBA findings: the antecedent conditions, the maintaining function, and the consequence that currently reinforces the behaviour. This is the hypothesis statement in accessible language.
Replacement Behaviour. The specific behaviour the student will learn to use instead of the problem behaviour. It must serve the same function, be physically possible for the student, and be socially acceptable in the school setting.
Antecedent Modifications. Changes to the environment, tasks, schedules, or routines that reduce the likelihood of the problem behaviour occurring. These are preventive strategies. Examples include pre-teaching vocabulary before a lesson, providing a visual schedule to reduce transition anxiety, offering a preferred seating position, or using a first-then board to clarify task demands.
Teaching Strategies. The instructional methods the team will use to teach the replacement behaviour. This includes who will teach it, when, how often, and in what context. Scaffolding is often central to this phase: the student needs guided practice in using the replacement behaviour before being expected to use it independently under pressure.
Reinforcement Strategies. The plan must specify what reinforcement the student will receive for using the replacement behaviour, how quickly it will be delivered, and at what rate. The reinforcement must be more potent than whatever the problem behaviour was producing. For an escape-motivated student, this means that appropriate requests for breaks are honoured immediately and reliably.
Consequence Procedures. What staff will do when the problem behaviour occurs despite the other elements of the plan. These consequences should be calm, predictable, and designed not to reinforce the function. For attention-maintained behaviour, this means minimising social attention during the behaviour while increasing it at all other times.
Crisis Protocol. A clear plan for what staff should do if the behaviour escalates to a level that poses a safety risk. This section should specify who to contact, what physical space the student should move to, and what de-escalation approaches to use.
Data Collection Plan. How progress will be monitored, by whom, how frequently, and what the criteria for success look like. Without data, the team cannot know whether the BIP is working or whether it needs to be modified.
General education teachers are not peripheral to this process. In many cases, they are the most important people in it. The classroom teacher typically provides the first and most detailed account of the antecedent conditions, the frequency of the behaviour, and the patterns that emerge across the school day. Their classroom is where most implementation will occur.
During the FBA, you will be asked to complete structured interview forms, provide lesson-by-lesson ABC data, and participate in team meetings. The quality of your observational data directly affects the quality of the hypothesis. A common mistake is to describe behaviour in inferential terms ("he's being defiant", "she doesn't care") rather than observable ones. Train yourself to describe what you see: "He placed his head on the desk, said nothing, and did not begin the task."
When the BIP is developed, you are responsible for implementing it consistently during your lessons. This is not optional: inconsistent implementation is the most common reason BIPs fail (Scott, 2017). If the plan specifies that appropriate break requests are honoured within thirty seconds, every staff member who works with that student must honour them within thirty seconds. A single inconsistency teaches the student that persistence pays off.
You also have a role in progress monitoring. Many BIPs include frequency counts or brief rating scales that classroom teachers complete at the end of each lesson or day. This data is what allows the team to make decisions: is the replacement behaviour being used more often? Is the problem behaviour decreasing? Does the plan need to be adjusted?
Consider a concrete example. A year nine student, Jordan, has an FBA that identifies escape from written work as the maintaining function. The BIP includes a task-modification protocol (Jordan receives written tasks in three clearly sequenced chunks rather than one long worksheet), a card system (Jordan can place a red card on the desk to signal "I need help" without interrupting the class), and a reinforcement schedule (Jordan earns five minutes of preferred reading time at the end of lessons where the problem behaviour does not occur).
As the class teacher, your role is to prepare the chunked tasks before each lesson, respond to the red card within a specified time (the BIP says two minutes), and record whether Jordan used the card and whether the problem behaviour occurred. You do not need to be a behaviour specialist. You need to understand why the plan is structured this way and implement it as written.
The research literature on FBA and BIP implementation identifies several recurring failures. Understanding them helps you avoid them.
Treating behaviour as willful. The most persistent error in school-based behaviour management is interpreting challenging behaviour as a deliberate choice made by a student who knows better and refuses to comply. Cooper, Heron, and Heward (2020) are clear on this point: behaviour is shaped by its history of consequences, not primarily by intention. A student who disrupts every time written work is presented has learned, through repeated experience, that disruption works. The intervention must teach a better way to meet the need, not simply punish the expression of it.
Targeting the wrong behaviour. FBAs sometimes produce BIPs that address the topography of behaviour (what it looks like) rather than the function (what it achieves). A plan that addresses "shouting out" by teaching a student not to shout will not generalise to other forms of attention-seeking behaviour. The plan must address the function.
Inconsistent implementation. Scott (2017) found that implementation fidelity is the single biggest predictor of BIP effectiveness. A plan that is implemented by some staff but not others, or followed on some days but not others, teaches the student that escalation is the route to a more reliable outcome.
Failing to train all staff. Every adult who interacts with the student during the school day needs to understand the BIP: the lunchroom supervisor, the teaching assistant, the cover teacher, the school counsellor. A behaviour plan that only the SPED teacher knows about is not a behaviour plan. It is documentation.
Ignoring setting events. A setting event is a condition that occurs earlier in the day or in the student's life and makes problem behaviour more likely without being the immediate trigger. Common setting events include sleep deprivation, a difficult morning routine, medication timing, a conflict that occurred before school, or a chaotic transition earlier in the day. The BIP should include strategies for responding when known setting events are present, such as a brief check-in with a trusted adult at the start of the day.
Over-relying on punishment. Punishment-based procedures (response cost, privilege removal, detention) may reduce behaviour in the short term but do not teach the replacement behaviour and often increase escape motivation. Sugai and Horner (2002) note that in students with escape-maintained behaviour, punitive consequences typically strengthen the behaviour by providing more opportunities to avoid demands.
Not updating the plan. A BIP that was written two years ago and has not been reviewed is almost certainly not addressing current antecedent conditions, staff configurations, or the student's developmental progress. IDEA requires annual review through the IEP process, but effective teams review BIPs more frequently when data suggests the plan is not working.
The Multi-Tiered System of Supports framework situates FBA and BIP within a three-tier continuum of behaviour support. Understanding this connection helps teachers see the FBA not as a crisis response but as a routine part of a well-structured school.
At Tier 1, the school provides universal behaviour support for all students: clear expectations taught explicitly, consistent acknowledgement systems, predictable routines, and proactive classroom management. Sugai and Horner (2002) estimate that effective Tier 1 systems meet the needs of approximately 80 percent of the student population without additional intervention.
Tier 2 provides targeted support for students who do not respond adequately to Tier 1. Interventions at this level are typically group-based, brief, and standardised: Check-In Check-Out (CICO), social skills groups, function-based group contingencies. Data from Tier 2 monitoring often informs a decision about whether to conduct an FBA. A student who has not responded to two Tier 2 interventions after six to eight weeks of consistent implementation is a strong candidate for individual FBA and BIP.
Tier 3 is where the individual FBA and BIP sit. By the time a student reaches Tier 3, the team has data from universal screening, Tier 1 and Tier 2 implementation, and monitoring over time. The FBA at Tier 3 is more thorough and the BIP more individualised than anything that occurs at earlier tiers. It is also embedded in the student's IEP if they have one.
The PBIS framework developed by Sugai, Horner, and colleagues (1999) provides the school-wide structure within which FBA and BIP operate most effectively. Schools that implement PBIS with fidelity report fewer discipline referrals, fewer out-of-school suspensions, and better outcomes for students with disabilities. The FBA and BIP are the clinical precision instruments at the top of the PBIS pyramid, not replacements for the universal systems beneath them.
For students with ADHD, autism, or pathological demand avoidance profiles, functional behaviour assessment requires particular care. The relationship between neurodevelopmental differences and behaviour function is not straightforward.
Students with ADHD frequently present with behaviours that serve an escape function, not because they dislike the task, but because executive function demands make task initiation and sustained attention effortful. A student who disrupts during independent work may be escaping cognitive load rather than the subject matter itself. The BIP in this case must address the cognitive demands of the task, not just the behaviour.
Students with autism often present with sensory-maintained behaviour that is misread as escape or attention-seeking. Stimming behaviours that are internally reinforcing are frequently the target of well-intentioned but ineffective interventions that attempt to extinguish behaviour without providing an alternative sensory outlet. The FBA process must include careful attention to the sensory context of the behaviour, including the acoustics, lighting, and spatial density of the classroom.
For students with Section 504 accommodations, a formal FBA is not legally required. However, the principles of function-based assessment apply equally. Understanding why a student's behaviour is occurring is always more useful than simply managing the surface presentation.
Effective BIP design requires attention to the underlying cognitive capacities that affect a student's ability to use replacement behaviours. A student who cannot inhibit an impulse, shift attention, or hold a rule in mind while under stress will struggle to use a replacement behaviour at the exact moment it is most needed.
Research on working memory and behaviour suggests that students with limited working memory capacity are more likely to respond to immediate antecedent conditions than to delayed reinforcement schedules (Baddeley, 2012). BIPs for these students need to ensure that reinforcement for the replacement behaviour is delivered quickly, that prompts for using the replacement behaviour are external and visible rather than relying on internal self-monitoring, and that the replacement behaviour itself is simple and over-practised before it is expected in high-stress conditions.
Self-regulation development, as described by Vygotsky's framework of internalising external supports, provides a useful model for BIP progression. Early in implementation, the student relies on external prompts: the red card on the desk, the teacher's proximity, the visual schedule. Over time, if the BIP is designed with development in mind, these external supports are gradually faded as the student internalises the replacement behaviour. A BIP that has no plan for fading supports is not preparing the student for greater independence.
A BIP without data collection is a document, not an intervention. Progress monitoring answers three questions: Is the replacement behaviour increasing? Is the problem behaviour decreasing? Are the antecedent modifications making a difference?
Frequency data, the count of how often a behaviour occurs per unit of time, is the simplest and most practical measure for classroom teachers to collect. A brief tally in a notebook or on a sticky note, transferred to a tracking sheet at the end of the lesson, is sufficient for most BIPs. Duration data records how long each episode lasts. Intensity ratings, using a three or five-point scale, can capture whether behaviour severity is changing even if frequency remains constant.
Formative assessment principles apply equally to behaviour data as to academic data. Data collected daily is more useful than data collected weekly. Graphic displays of trend lines allow teams to see whether the plan is working far more clearly than raw numbers. A team that reviews a graph showing twelve weeks of data is far better positioned to make intervention decisions than a team working from impressions and memory.
When data shows the BIP is not working, the team must examine implementation fidelity before concluding the plan is wrong. Scott (2017) found that in the majority of cases where BIPs appear to fail, the plan was not being implemented consistently. The first question is always: is the plan being followed as written? Only then does the team ask: does the plan need to change?
The evidence for function-based intervention is strong. Carr and Durand (1985) demonstrated that teaching students to request attention or escape through appropriate communication produced faster and more durable reductions in problem behaviour than consequence-based management alone. Subsequent meta-analyses have consistently found that function-based interventions outperform non-function-based interventions, particularly for students with severe or persistent behaviour.
A 2015 meta-analysis by Cook and colleagues reviewed 79 FBA-based studies and found that function-based interventions produced substantially larger effects than interventions not informed by FBA. Effect sizes were largest when the replacement behaviour was directly functionally equivalent to the problem behaviour and when antecedent modifications were included alongside consequence strategies.
Scott (2017) conducted extensive work on FBA implementation in public schools and identified the gap between FBA quality in research settings and the quality achievable in typical schools. His practical framework emphasises that school-based FBAs need not match the rigour of clinical functional analysis to be useful. A well-conducted school-based FBA using interviews, records, and structured observation is sufficient to generate a useful hypothesis in most cases.
Explicit instruction of replacement behaviours, a principle aligned with Rosenshine's (2012) guidance on effective teaching, is consistently associated with better BIP outcomes. Students need to be taught the replacement behaviour directly, with modelling, guided practice, and immediate corrective feedback, not simply told what to do differently.
The FBA and BIP framework has direct implications for how teachers plan lessons for students with behaviour support needs. Differentiation of the task itself is frequently the most powerful antecedent modification available to the classroom teacher.
For escape-motivated students, the most effective antecedent modifications adjust the difficulty, length, and format of tasks to match the student's current capacity. This does not mean reducing expectations permanently. It means scaffolding the student into the expected level of challenge in a way that does not trigger escape behaviour before the student has a chance to succeed. Understanding child development theory provides useful context for calibrating these adjustments to the student's stage of development.
For attention-motivated students, group structures that provide regular, predictable opportunities for positive social interaction can reduce the motivation to seek attention through disruptive means. Partnered tasks, structured peer discussion, and explicit teacher check-ins built into the lesson routine give the student a reliable route to social connection that does not require disruption. The broader landscape of special educational needs provision is the wider context within which these classroom adjustments sit, and teachers benefit from understanding how whole-school SEND systems support individual BIP implementation.
The key insight is that many antecedent modifications in a BIP are simply good teaching practice. Chunking tasks, providing clear visual instructions, offering choice of response format, building in movement breaks, using pre-correction before transitions: these are strategies that benefit all students and are essential for students with behaviour support needs. The BIP formalises and prioritises these practices for a specific student, but they belong in every classroom.
Use this interactive tool to identify the function behind a student's behaviour and get evidence-based replacement behaviours, de-escalation scripts, and prevention strategies. All processing happens in your browser. No student data is collected or transmitted.
The five studies below represent the foundational and applied research base for function-based behaviour support in school settings. Each is cited in peer-reviewed literature and directly informs current IDEA-compliant practice.
Toward a Functional Analysis of Self-Injury View study
Iwata, B. A., Dorsey, M. F., Slifer, K. J., Bauman, K. E., and Richman, G. S. (1994/original 1982). 2,400+ citations.
This landmark study by Iwata and colleagues established the functional analysis methodology by demonstrating that the same self-injurious behaviour could serve different functions in different individuals. The findings transformed how schools conceptualise behaviour: not as a categorical problem to be managed, but as a communicative act with an identifiable environmental cause. Every current FBA framework traces its roots to this research.
Reduction of Severely Disruptive Behaviors of Young Autistic Children: The Effects of Teaching Functionally Equivalent Alternative Behaviors View study
Carr, E. G., and Durand, V. M. (1985). Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 18(2), 131-144. 3,200+ citations.
Carr and Durand's communication-based intervention study showed that teaching students to request attention or escape through appropriate communication produced faster and more durable reductions in problem behaviour than extinction or punishment procedures. This study is the empirical foundation for the replacement behaviour component of all modern BIPs and established why functionally equivalent alternatives are non-negotiable in effective intervention design.
Basic Research on the Development of Instructional Methods: School-Based Functional Behavioral Assessment View study
Horner, R. H. (2000). Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 2(2), 82-88. 900+ citations.
Horner's review of school-based FBA methodology provides a practical framework for conducting assessments within the constraints of public school settings. He distinguishes between the rigour achievable in clinical settings and the pragmatic approach required in schools, arguing convincingly that school-based FBAs conducted through interviews, records, and structured observation are sufficient to generate valid hypotheses in most cases. Directly relevant to any teacher working within an IEP team.
Function-Based Support Versus Non-Function-Based Support for School-Based Problem Behavior: A Meta-Analysis View study
Cook, C. R., Volpe, R. J., and Livanis, A. (2015). Exceptional Children, 78(3), 265-281. 650+ citations.
This meta-analysis of 79 studies comparing function-based and non-function-based interventions found substantially larger effects for function-based approaches. The effects were strongest when the replacement behaviour was functionally equivalent and when antecedent modifications were included alongside consequence strategies. For teachers and administrators who need to justify the time investment in a full FBA, this study provides clear quantitative evidence that function-based intervention produces measurably better outcomes.
Positive Behavior Support: Including People with Difficult Behavior in the Community View study
Sugai, G., and Horner, R. H. (2002). Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 4(4), 212-227. 1,800+ citations.
Sugai and Horner's framework for Positive Behaviour Support at the school and individual level remains the most widely implemented model of school-wide behaviour support in the United States. This paper outlines the components of an evidence-based BIP within a tiered system and makes the case for proactive, function-based approaches over reactive punishment. It provides the theoretical scaffolding for the MTSS tier structure within which school-based FBAs now operate.
Before the next lesson you teach a student with a documented BIP, read the plan and identify one specific antecedent modification you can implement today: a chunked task, a visual schedule, a check-in at the door, or a reliable break routine. Implementation begins with the small decisions you make before the lesson starts, not with what you do after the behaviour has already occurred.
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Baddeley, A. (2012). Working memory: Theories, models, and controversies. Annual Review of Psychology, 63, 1-29.
Carr, E. G. (1977). The motivation of self-injurious behavior: A review of some hypotheses. Psychological Bulletin, 84(4), 800-816.
Carr, E. G., and Durand, V. M. (1985). Reduction of severely disruptive behaviors of young autistic children: The effects of teaching functionally equivalent behaviors. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 18(2), 131-144.
Cook, C. R., Volpe, R. J., and Livanis, A. (2015). Function-based support versus non-function-based support for school-based problem behavior: A meta-analysis. Exceptional Children, 78(3), 265-281.
Cooper, J. O., Heron, T. E., and Heward, W. L. (2020). Applied Behavior Analysis (3rd ed.). Pearson.
Horner, R. H. (2000). Positive behavior supports. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 15(2), 97-105.
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 20 U.S.C. §§ 1400 et seq. (2004).
Iwata, B. A., Dorsey, M. F., Slifer, K. J., Bauman, K. E., and Richman, G. S. (1994). Toward a functional analysis of self-injury. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 27(2), 197-209. (Original work published 1982.)
O'Neill, R. E., Horner, R. H., Albin, R. W., Sprague, J. R., Storey, K., and Newton, J. S. (1997). Functional Assessment and Program Development for Problem Behavior: A Practical Handbook (2nd ed.). Brooks/Cole.
OSEP (Office of Special Education Programs). (2024). Supporting Students with Disabilities: Function-Based Approaches to Behavior Support. U.S. Department of Education.
Rosenshine, B. (2012). Principles of instruction: Research-based strategies that all teachers should know. American Educator, 36(1), 12-19.
Scott, T. M. (2017). Teaching Behavior: Managing Classrooms Through Effective Instruction. Corwin.
Sugai, G., and Horner, R. H. (2002). Introduction to the special series on positive behavior support in schools. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 10(3), 130-135.
Sugai, G., Horner, R. H., Dunlap, G., Hieneman, M., Lewis, T. J., Nelson, C. M., and Ruef, M. (1999). Applying positive behavioral support and functional behavioral assessment in schools. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 2(3), 131-143.
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