Module 6: Lesson 3

Direct functional assessment methods are those that involve the professional or paraprofessional directly and unobtrusively observing an individual who engages in behaviors that challenge and their physical and social environment.

Direct functional assessment methods include things like ABC recording, frequency recording, duration recording, whole/partial interval recording and scatterplot recording.

Direct Functional assessment methods offer an objective means of collecting information that may help to substantiate indirect assessment findings.

A disadvantage of direct functional assessment methods is that the observer can only record what happens during an observation period. For example, if conducting a functional assessment of a student?s challenging behaviour in a school, the observer cannot observe how much sleep the person had, whether or not they had breakfast, if they received their morning medication etc. Similarly, those supporting a person with challenging behaviour (e.g. school staff or carers) may also alter how they react to the behaviors that challenge due to the presence of the observer.  There may be other factors involved in contributing to the occurrence of the individual?s challenging behavior that are involved and have not been identified (e.g. a history of abuse or neglect). 

By combining direct and indirect functional assessment methods, we can identify correlations between the behaviors and various environmental variables that we can use to formulate a hypothesis about the function of a behaviour.

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