Combining descriptive and experimental analyses of young children with behavior problems in preschool settings.

The team worked with preschoolers who hit, screamed, or ran away. First they watched and wrote down what happened before and after each burst. They sorted these notes by what the child seemed to want: teacher attention, escape from tasks, or a favorite toy. Next they ran short tests that gave or took away those items to see if the behavior still happened. The whole process stayed inside the classroom so results would match real life.

Graphing the notes by guessed function made patterns pop out fast. The brief follow-up tests matched the pattern, so teachers knew why the behavior occurred in only a few sessions. Interventions built from those quick tests lowered problem behavior for every child.

Duker et al. (1991) first said "combine watching with testing" eight years earlier, so this study shows the idea working in real preschools.

Henry et al. (2021) later added confirmation and annulment conditions and hit 100% clear results, a cleaner update to the same brief-test goal.

Contreras et al. (2023) pooled 48 studies and found descriptive data match full functional analyses only half the time. That sounds like a clash, but the 1999 paper never claimed perfect match—only that the first look speeds up the next test. Using structured sheets, as Contreras urges, would make the 1999 method even sharper.

You can shave hours off preschool FBA by sorting your ABC data by suspected function before you graph. One quick picture tells you what to test next, so you run fewer test sessions and get to treatment faster. Try it Monday: after ten minutes of observation, plot the notes by attention, escape, and tangible columns instead of by time. Pick the tallest column for your first test condition.