Conducting functional analyses of problem behavior via telehealth.

The team ran a short functional analysis over video call.

They wanted to see if a habit cough was kept going by adult attention.

A parent followed the script at home while the BCBA watched on Skype.

Attention was the pay-off.

When mom looked, spoke, or rubbed the child’s back, the cough surged.

A simple plan—give attention for quiet breaths, look away for coughs—wiped the habit out in days.

Tomlinson et al. (2018) later reviewed many telehealth ABA studies and folded this cough case into the evidence pile.

Zoder-Martell et al. (2020) then mapped out the exact web-cam angles and Swivl moves you need so your next remote FA looks this clean.

Jessel et al. (2022) warn that closed-contingency FAs can spark dangerous behavior; the open, brief format used here kept risk low while still nailing the function.

You no longer need to drive three hours to run an FA on a habit or tic.

If a caregiver has a phone, a script, and five minutes, you can test the function, build the treatment, and watch the data roll in live.

Try it next time a parent says, “The sniffing only happens at home.”