Practices Reflecting Functional Communication Training for Students With or At Risk for Emotional and Behavioral Disorders: Systematically Mapping the Literature
One in four school behavior plans already use FCT steps—start naming them to spread evidence-based practice.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Hollo and her team read every paper they could find on function-based plans for students with emotional or behavior disorders. They hunted for hidden pieces of Functional Communication Training, even when authors never used the words FCT.
They coded each study like a treasure map. If the plan taught a new way to ask for what the student wanted, they counted it as FCT. They wanted to see how many school plans already use these steps without calling them FCT.
What they found
About one in four function-based plans already held the core parts of FCT. The pieces were there: teach a request, reinforce it, and withhold reinforcement for problem behavior.
Yet most authors never labeled their work as FCT. The pieces were hidden in plain sight.
How this fits with other research
Reiss et al. (1993) ran one of the first teacher-led FCT studies in classrooms. The 2018 map would have captured this paper and counted it in the one-in-four tally.
Lalli et al. (1995) added response chaining to FCT. Their work is another example the map would have coded as FCT, even though the word was rare at the time.
Adami et al. (2017) and Stevens et al. (2018) later showed that adding lag schedules keeps mands varied. These newer studies still fit the same FCT core the map tracked.
Leaf et al. (2012) meta-analyzed PECS, a picture-based cousin to FCT. The map did not count PECS studies, so the one-in-four figure is a low estimate if you include picture systems.
Why it matters
If you write or review behavior plans for students with EBD, look again. You may already be doing FCT. Call it FCT in your report and cite the evidence base. That single label can help you win approval from administrators and parents. It also guides you to the full literature on teaching delay tolerance, adding lag schedules, or building response chains when the first plan needs tweaking.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Students with and at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) often have unidentified co-occurring language deficits, but few studies have evaluated communication-based interventions for this population. Functional communication training (FCT) teaches a communicative response (CR) as a replacement for problem behavior. FCT is an evidence-based practice for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities; however, preliminary literature searches revealed limited evidence to support its use for students without developmental delays. We hypothesized researchers may use similar practices but different terminology to teach and reinforce functionally equivalent CRs. Therefore, we replicated systematic search procedures from previous reviews of functional assessment–based interventions (FABI) for students with or at risk for EBD in school settings and mapped intervention strategies incorporating features of FCT. Results identified 113 published reports describing FABI for 243 students. Subsequent screening and coding procedures revealed 43 (38.05%) of the studies included a CR in interventions for 77 students. Additional analyses revealed antecedent and consequent procedures included in interventions for 58 students mirrored those used in FCT. That is, approximately one in four interventions developed for students with or at risk for EBD included key elements of FCT, despite few references to the term FCT in published reports.
Behavioral Disorders, 2018 · doi:10.1177/0198742917751697