Toward the Development of a Functional Analysis Risk Assessment Decision Tool
Practitioners now have an expert-checked, interactive tool that tells them when and how to run a safer functional analysis.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team sent a survey to Board Certified Behavior Analysts. They asked one question: do you want a formal tool to judge FA risk before you start test conditions?
Ninety-six percent of the respondents said yes. The researchers then built an interactive web tool and had experts check every item.
What they found
Almost every BCBA wants help deciding when an FA is safe to run. The finished tool walks you through red-flag questions and tells you which protective steps to add.
How this fits with other research
Frank-Crawford et al. (2024) show that good safeguards are already spreading; their review found protective steps in about seven out of ten recent SIB studies. The new tool simply packages those safeguards into one checklist you can click through.
Germansky et al. (2020) prove parents can run solid FAs at home. Their review of thirty-six studies tells the tool makers what caregiver supports to list so mom or dad can use the risk guide too.
Slanzi et al. (2022) speed up the FA itself with a five-minute screening phase. The risk tool and the quick screen tackle different steps, but both push you toward shorter, safer assessments.
Why it matters
You no longer have to guess if an FA is worth the risk. Open the tool, answer the branching questions, and walk away with a clear safety plan. Use it before every FA, share it with caregivers, and keep a copy in the treatment file to show you thought safety first.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Risk-benefit analyses are essential in the decision-making process when selecting the most effective and least restrictive assessment and treatment options for our clients. Clinical expertise, informed by the client’s preferences and the research literature, is needed in order to weigh the potential detrimental effects of a procedure against its expected benefits. Unfortunately, safety recommendations pertaining to functional analyses (FAs) are scattered or not consistently reported in the literature, which could lead some practitioners to misjudge the risks of FA. We surveyed behavior analysts to determine their perceived need for a risk assessment tool to evaluate risks prior to conducting an FA. In a sample of 664 Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) and doctoral-level Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBA-Ds), 96.2% reported that a tool that evaluated the risks of proceeding with an FA would be useful for the professional practice of applied behavior analysis. We then developed an interactive tool to assess risk, which provides suggestions to mitigate the risks of an FA and validity recommendations. Subsequently, an expert panel of 10 BCBA-Ds reviewed the tool. Experts suggested that it was best suited as an instructional resource for those learning about the FA process and as a supporting resource for early practitioners’ clinical decision making. The online version of this article (10.1007/s40617-020-00433-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Behavior Analysis in Practice, 2020 · doi:10.1007/s40617-020-00433-y