How to Conduct More Culturally Responsive and Trauma-Informed Functional Assessment Interviews: A Tutorial

Jessel et al. (2025) wrote a how-to guide. The guide shows you how to run a functional assessment interview that is both trauma-informed and culturally responsive.

The paper gives you a short tool and sample questions you can use right away. No new data were collected; it is a practitioner tutorial.

The authors produced a ready-to-use interview form. The form adds cultural and trauma questions to the usual FA interview.

Clinicians can follow the steps to make families feel safer and heard while still learning what triggers the behavior.

The tutorial extends the narrative review by Čolić et al. (2022). That review showed Black caregivers face racism in ABA services. The new tool turns those warnings into concrete interview questions you can ask today.

Kemmerer et al. (2023) scoured caregiver-training studies and found most skip cultural detail. Jessel et al. (2025) fill that exact gap with a cultural lens built into the FA interview.

Prasher et al. (2007) proved that the way you assess changes how well treatment works. Adding trauma and culture items to the interview is a new layer that should boost later treatment success.

You now have a one-page tool that keeps the FA interview clinical, yet safe and respectful. Use it to lower client stress, build rapport, and still get the A-B-C data you need. Better first meetings often mean better behavior plans and fewer no-shows.