What is an FBA (Functional Behavior Assessment)?
A functional behavior assessment (FBA) is the process of identifying why a challenging behavior happens - what tends to trigger it and what it achieves for the person - so that an intervention can address the cause rather than the surface behavior.
An FBA gathers evidence from several directions at once: interviews with caregivers and teachers, direct observation of the behavior in the settings where it actually occurs, and data on what happened immediately before and immediately after each occurrence.
The goal is to identify the behavior's function. Most behaviors serve one of a small set of purposes - gaining attention, obtaining an item or activity, escaping a demand or situation, or producing sensory input - and which one it is determines what the plan should do about it.
Those findings feed directly into a behavior intervention plan. Without them a team is guessing, and an intervention built around the wrong function can make a behavior more frequent rather than less.