What Is a Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA)?
A functional behavior assessment is the systematic process of figuring out why a behavior happens — what it does for the student (its function). FBAs gather data on antecedents, behaviors, and consequences to test hypotheses like "this behavior escapes hard tasks."
In plain language
Behavior is communication, and it serves a purpose: escape, attention, access to something, or sensory needs. An FBA replaces guesswork with evidence. Teachers don't conduct formal FBAs alone — but the daily data they collect (triggers, behaviors, outcomes) is often what the assessment is built from.
Classroom example
A teacher's incident logs show refusals cluster when math word problems start and drop when a peer reads aloud. The FBA team uses those logs — structured antecedent data — to confirm the hypothesis and design support around task difficulty.
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