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O R I G I N A L A R T I C L E

Comparing Indirect, Descriptive, and Experimental

Functional Assessments of Challenging Behaviorin Children with Autism

Jonathan Tarbox & Arthur E. Wilke & Adel C. Najdowski &

Rachel S. Findel-Pyles & Susie Balasanyan & Amy C. Caveney &

Vardui Chilingaryan & Deidra M. King & Sarah M. Niehoff& Kelly Slease &

Betty Tia

Published online: 9 October 2009# Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2009

Abstract Current standards of practice in psychological and educational services

dictate the need for ascertaining the function of challenging behaviors before treating

them and for behavioral interventions to be based on the function of behavior. At leastthree broad categories of functional assessments have been developed, including

indirect, descriptive, and experimental procedures. Although experimental functional

analyses are common in empirical research on behavioral intervention, indirect and

descriptive functional assessment procedures may be more commonly used in clinical

and educational practice. Little research has systematically compared indirect,

descriptive, and experimental functional assessments in children with autism. The

current study compares indirect, descriptive, and experimental functional assessments,

across seven children with autism, representing a range of ages and topographies of

challenging behavior. Overall, descriptive assessments often did not produceconclusive results, whereas the indirect and experimental assessments generally did.

Concurrence across the three types of functional assessments was found in only one

case. Implications for clinical and educational practice are discussed.

J Dev Phys Disabil (2009) 21:493514

DOI 10.1007/s10882-009-9154-8

Rachel S. Findel-Pyles was Rachel S. F. Tarbox and was affiliated with the Center for Autism and Related

Disorders at the time the study was conducted.

J. Tarbox (*) : A. E. Wilke : A. C. Najdowski

Center for Autism and Related Disorders, Inc., 19019 Ventura Blvd, 3rd Floor,

Tarzana, CA 91356, USAe-mail: [email protected]


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Keywords Functional assessment. Functional analysis . Functional behavioral

assessment. Indirect. Direct. Descriptive . Experimental functional analysis . Autism

Ascertaining the function of challenging behavior prior to designing behaviorintervention plans has become the professional standard of practice and is mandated

in many cases (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C. 1400 et seq.

(1975, as amended, 1997). The function of a behavior refers to the source of

environmental reinforcement for it. Common sources of environmental reinforce-

ment for challenging behavior in individuals with developmental disabilities are

attention from others, escape from task demands, access to preferred items or

activities, and automatic or self-stimulatory reinforcement (Hanley et al. 2003;

Iwata et al. 1994).

Knowledge of the function of challenging behavior is valuable because it allowsone to design behavior intervention plans that are based on the reason why the

behavior occurs in the individuals everyday life. Function-based interventions are

likely to be successful because they are based on the everyday desires of the

individual whose challenging behavior is being treated. For example, if a young

child with autism exhibits tantrums because he/she desires to escape from difficult

task demands, then teaching him/her to ask for help would directly address the

function because it would provide the child with an alternative, more adaptive means

of obtaining what he/she wants. For example, Durand and Crimmins (1987) taught a

9-yr-old boy with autism to say

help me

when faced with difficult task demands,thereby resulting in a decrease in the boys maladaptive behavior. The general

practice of teaching individuals to appropriately request the source of reinforcement

that motivates their challenging behavior, referred to as functional communication

training, has a significant amount of research supporting it, across a variety of

behaviors and across a variety of behavioral functions (Tiger et al. 2008).

In addition, if the function of a target behavior is not correctly identified, then an

intervention plan designed to decrease the behavior may inadvertently strengthen it.

For example, if the function of disruptive behavior of a child in the classroom is to

avoid having to do work, then removing the child from the classroom as a

consequence for their behavior (e.g., office referral, timeout room, sending them to

sit in the hallway), may actually reinforce the behavior because it is allowing the

child to escape from work. Similarly, if the function of a behavior is to obtain

attention from others, then reprimanding a child for engaging in the behavior or

engaging the child in a private discussion about the behavior immediately following

the occurrence of the behavior may actually serve to reinforce the behavior, because

it involves providing the child with attention following the behavior.

Procedures which are designed to help determine the function of challenging

behavior are referred to as functional assessments. Many functional assessment

procedures have been developed over the last three or so decades but most or all can

be classified into one of the following three general types: 1) indirect, 2) descriptive,

494 J Dev Phys Disabil (2009) 21:493514
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of the target behavior. Many indirect assessments require less than an hour to

conduct. However, the major disadvantage of indirect assessments is that a

significant amount of research has found most indirect assessments to have

inconsistent reliability (Iwata et al. 2000a).

The Questions About Behavioral Function (QABF) (Matson and Vollmer 1995) isan indirect assessment tool with a significant amount of research supporting it.

Research has suggested that the QABF appears to be valid and clinically useful

(Matson et al. 1999). Specifically, Matson et al. found that the QABF identified clear

functions for 84% of 398 participants and that treatments based on the functions

obtained from the QABF led to more significant improvements than those that were

not based on the functions obtained from the QABF. In addition, previous research

has found that the QABF has good test-retest reliability (Paclawskyj et al. 2000;

Shogren and Rojahn 2003; Singh et al. 2006), modest-to-good inter-rater reliability

(Nicholson et al. 2006; Paclawskyj et al. 2000, 2001; Shogren and Rojahn 2003;Singh et al. 2006), good internal consistency (Nicholson et al. 2006; Paclawskyj et

al. 2000, 2001; Shogren and Rojahn 2003; Singh et al. 2006), good stability over

time (Paclawskyj et al. 2000, 2001), and moderate and better convergent validity

with experimental functional analysis than the motivational assessment scale (MAS,

Durand and Crimmins 1988) (Paclawskyj et al. 2001).

Descriptive assessments involve direct observation and measurement of the target

behavior as well as environmental variables which are presumed to be functionally

relevant to it (Cooper et al. 2007). Many types of descriptive assessments exist but

the most commonly used is likely

antecedent-behavior-consequence

(ABC)recording. ABC recording consists of observing the individual in their natural

environment, and each time an instance of the target behavior occurs, recording

environmental events which immediately precede it (antecedents) and environmental

events which immediately follow it (consequences). Antecedents and consequences

are then analyzed and summarized according to which potential function they

suggest. ABC assessments can be conducted in an open-ended format (wherein

antecedents and consequences are described qualitatively) or in a structured format

(wherein antecedents and consequences are classified as one or more of a set number

of categories). Potential advantages of descriptive assessments are that they allow the

assessor to observe the behavior in the environment in which it naturally occurs,

thereby allowing for the opportunity to record a multitude of variables which may be

relevant to the behavior. Potential disadvantages are that the behavior may not occur

during observation periods and that accurate recording of antecedents and

consequences may require a significant amount of training and expertise. Perhaps

the largest potential disadvantage of descriptive assessments is that the relations

between behavior and environment that they demonstrate are correlational and may

not actually reveal the function of behavior. For example, attention may be observed

as a frequent consequence of behavior simply because reprimands are a common

response from caregivers in our culture when individuals engage in destructive

behavior, and this reaction may actually be irrelevant to the function of the behavior.

J Dev Phys Disabil (2009) 21:493514 495495
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reported by Iwata and colleagues (Iwata et al. 1982). Many variations on this

procedure have been described in the literature but the basic model has remained

largely intact over the years. For example, in a review of 152 cases of adults with

developmental disorders and challenging behaviors, an EFA produced interpretable

results 95.4% of the time (Iwata et al. 1994). In a recent review of 277 articles(91.3% of which included participants with a developmental disorder) published in

peer-reviewed journals, 95.9% of EFAs yielded interpretable results (Hanley et al.

2003). Given that researchers are probably more likely to submit positive findings

than negative ones, it is possible that the actual percentage of EFAs that produce

clear results in real-life clinical and educational settings is lower. Nevertheless, the

fact that hundreds of clear EFAs have been published suggests that it is likely a

procedure with general utility.

Some researchers have attempted to compare functional assessments of different

types. Most research which has compared descriptive and EFAs has produced mixedresults. On the one hand, some studies have demonstrated that descriptive and

experimental assessments produce similar results. For example, Sasso et al. (1992)

conducted descriptive and experimental functional assessments for the challenging

behavior of two children with autism. Both assessment procedures suggested that the

behaviors were maintained by access to escape from task demands. Similarly,

Arndorfer and Miltenberger (1994) conducted indirect, descriptive, and brief EFAs

across five children with a variety of developmental and behavioral disorders. They

found that the results of Functional Assessment Inventory (FAI) indirect assessment,

the descriptive assessments, and the experimental assessments agreed in all five casesOn the other hand, several studies have produced results demonstrating that

descriptive and experimental assessments do not produce similar results. For example,

Mace and Lalli (1991) conducted descriptive and EFAs on the bizarre speech of an

adult with moderate mental retardation. The descriptive assessment suggested that

both attention from others and escape from task demands were functions of the

behavior, while the experimental assessment demonstrated that only attention from

others actually functioned as a reinforcer. Lerman and Iwata (1993) compared

descriptive and EFAs for self-injurious behavior (SIB), displayed by six adults with

developmental disorders. The experimental analyses produced clear results in all

cases but the descriptive produced conclusive results in only one out of six. Most

recently, Thompson and Iwata (2007) compared results of descriptive and EFAs

across 12 adults with developmental disorders and challenging behaviors. The results

indicated that the experimental analyses produced interpretable results in all cases but

that the descriptive and experimental assessments agreed in only three of 12 cases.

Despite the preponderance of evidence that experimental assessments produce clear

results in a large proportion of cases, and that descriptive and indirect assessments may

not, it appears that indirect and descriptive assessments are far more commonly used in

clinical practice than experimental procedures. In a survey of clinician opinion

(Desrochers et al. 1997), it was reported that indirect and descriptive assessments are

more useful than experimental assessments. Furthermore, despite the large amount of

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assessments showed agreement for three of four participants in relation to the indirect

and experimental assessments, while comparative results between descriptive and

experimental assessments showed agreement for one out of four participants. Lastly,

comparison of indirect and descriptive assessments resulted in no agreements of

proposed functions for any of the participants.Given the popularity of indirect and descriptive assessments in clinical use,

contrasted with the prominence of EFAs in published research, and the inconsistent

published findings on agreement between the three types of assessments, it appears

that more comparative research is needed. Furthermore, no research of which the

authors are aware has directly compared indirect, descriptive, and EFAs in children

with autism. In the current study, we compared indirect functional assessments, in

the form of the QABF, descriptive functional assessments, in the form of ABC

recording, and EFAs, across seven children with autism.

Method

Participants and Settings

Seven children with a diagnosis of autism participated in this study. All participants

were clients of a community-based provider of home-based early intensive behavioral

intervention (EIBI) services for individuals with autism. John was a 5-year-old boy

who was ambulatory and could vocalize one word utterances and complete simpleone-to-two step instructions. All of Johns sessions were conducted in the family room

of his home. Jay was a 3-year-old boy who was vocal and ambulatory. He could

vocalize 23 word utterances, and could complete simple one-step instructions. All of

Jays sessions were conducted in a therapy room at his service providers clinic. Hank

was a 7-year-old male who could vocalize one-to-two word utterances and was

ambulatory. He was able to complete simple one-to-two step instructions. Sessions for

Hanks EFA were conducted in his bedroom in his home and sessions for the

descriptive assessment were conducted in his bedroom, family room, and kitchen of

his home. Ryan was an 8-year-old boy who could vocalize in a conversational manner,

was ambulatory, and could complete complex multiple step instructions. All sessions

were conducted in a bedroom in his home. Rachel was a 3-year-old girl who was non-

vocal, ambulatory, and could complete simple one-step instructions. Rachels sessions

were conducted in a family room in her home. Vince was a 9-year-old boy who was

vocal, ambulatory, and could verbalize complex sentences. Sessions for Vince were

conducted in a family room and living room in his home. Jonathan was an 8-year-old

boy who was fully ambulatory, could vocalize simple words (e.g., swing, color),

and could complete simple two-step instructions. Sessions were conducted in his

bedroom and the living room of his home.

Response Measurement



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behavior was tantrums, defined as crying, screaming, or yelling above conversational

level. Hanks target behavior consisted of property destruction, defined as knocking,

swiping, kicking, or pushing over items with hands or feet (e.g., knocking over chairs).

Ryans target behavior consisted of whining, which was defined as elongated

vocalizations, made in a nasal tone, often consisting of complaints regardingeducational instructions. Rachels target behavior was grimacing, a form of facial

stereotypy which involved wrinkling the eyebrows to the center of the face while

looking up, down, or through the corner of her eyes, in the absence of crying. Vinces

target behavior consisted of verbal protesting, which was defined as saying no, shut

up, orstop. Jonathans target behavior was vocal stereotypy, defined as engaging in

vocal sounds, words, or phrases, which were not communicative or functional given the

current context.

Procedures

The following three functional assessments were conducted with all participants, in

this order: 1) QABF, 2) ABC recording, and 3) EFA. This order was chosen because

it proceeds from less intrusive and costly to more intrusive and costly procedures,

and is commonly recommended in practice (O Neill et al. 1996).

Indirect assessment Experimenters interviewed caregivers and completed the QABF

(Matson and Vollmer 1995). The QABF asks 25 questions (five questions per

potential behavioral function) about a single target behavior, based on five possible behavioral functions; attention, escape, tangible, automatic sensory reinforcement

(referred to as non-social), and automatic reinforcement involving physical pain or

discomfort (referred to as physical). Caregivers gave responses to each of the 25

questions by rating the particular target behavior on a four-point Likert scale, where

3=often, 2=sometimes, 1=rarely, 0=never, and n/a= not applicable. The

examiner then scored the caregivers responses by calculating separate endorsement

and severity subscales for each potential function of the target behavior. The

endorsement score was calculated by summing the number of questions pertaining to

a particular function that were answered with a score of 1 or higher. An endorsement

score of 4 or higher out of 5 possible endorsements for one behavioral function with

no other subscales containing similar scores qualified as a clear function. The

severity subscale is calculated by summing the overall score for all five questions of

a given potential function. A maximum severity score of 15 can be scored for any of

the possible behavioral functions.

Descriptive assessment Members of the participants clinical team videotaped 90

120 min of the participant in situations in their homes that were reportedly associated

with the target behavior, which were for the most part EIBI therapy sessions. The

examiners then watched the videotapes and collected ABC data for the specific

target behavior of that participant. Palm Z23 personal data assistants, running

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Each time a target behavior occurred, its antecedent was recorded according to all

of the following categories which applied: 1) Low Attention was scored if no one

spoke to the participant for 5-s prior to the occurrence of the target behavior; 2)

Demand was scored if a request or instructional demand was given within 5-s prior

to the target behavior; 3) Denied was scored if an item or activity was removed orterminated within 5-s prior to the target behavior; or 4) None was scored if none of

the above applied, i.e., attention was provided (either physical or vocal), no demands

were placed, and no items were removed or activities terminated for 5 s prior to the

behavior. With the exception of the None category, it was possible for more than one

antecedent to be scored for a given occurrence of a behavior. For example, a

caregiver may turn off the television (denied) and may simultaneously ask their child

to begin their homework (demand).

Each time a target behavior occurred, its consequence was scored according to all

of the following categories which applied: 1) Attention was scored if either vocal orphysical interaction was provided by the caregiver within 5-s after the occurrence of

the target behavior; 2) Escape was scored if the caregiver discontinued an

instructional demand or request within 5-s after the occurrence of the target

behavior; 3) Tangible was scored if the caregiver gave access to an item or activity

within 5-s after the occurrence of the target behavior; or 4) None was scored if none

of the above applied, that is, no attention (vocal or physical) was provided following

the behavior, the caregiver did not provide escape from an ongoing demand, and

access to an item or activity was not granted within 5-s after the occurrence of the

target behavior. With the exception of the None category, it was possible for acombination of the consequences to be scored for a target behavior. For example, a

caregiver might discontinue instructional demands (escape) while simultaneously

reprimanding the child (attention) for engaging in the target behavior.

Interobserver agreement Two observers scored data simultaneously but indepen-

dently during 30% or more of each participants descriptive assessment sessions.

Exact agreement coefficients were calculated for target behaviors, as well as each

category of antecedents and consequences, in each consecutive 10-s interval of the

entire observation period. A percentage of agreement for a given interval was

defined as both observers scoring the presence or absence of an event in that interval

and the overall percentage of intervals in which the two observers agreed was

calculated (Table 1).

Experimental functional analysis Experimental functional analyses (Iwata et al. 1982)

were conducted and videotaped with each participant. Three or four of the following

conditions were included for each participant: attention, demand, tangible, ignore, and

play. Vince, Jay, Scott, Jonathan, and John were exposed to attention, play, tangible,

and demand conditions. Ryan was exposed to attention, play, easy demands, and

difficult demands (the demand condition was split into separate easy and difficult

conditions because of the anecdotal observation that difficult demands appeared to



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geandmeaninterobserveragreement(IOA)fortargetbehaviors,antecedents,andconsequencesforallparticipantsinthedescriptiveassessmen

t

Targetbehavior

Targetbehavior

Antecedent

C

onsequences

Lowattention

Demand

Denied

None

A

ttention

Escape

Tangible

None

Verb

alprotest

100

100

91100

91100

98100

9

2100

98100

88100

91100

m=100

m=100

m=96

m=97

m=99

m

=97

m=99

m=96

m=96

Tantrum

98100

100

93100

96100

98100

9

1100

96100

98100

91100

m=99

m=100

m=99

m=97

m=99

m

=97

m=98

m=99

m=93

Whining

92100

96100

85100

98100

87100

8

8100

100

100

87100

m=96

m=99

m=95

m=99

m=96

m

=98

m=100

m=10

0

m=96

Grim

acing

86100

91100

95100

100

96100

9

8100

100

100

95100

m=97

m=98

m=98

m=100

m=98

m

=99

m=100

m=10

0

m=97

Disruption

100

100

98100

100

98100

9

8100

98100

100

98100

m=100

m=100

m=99

m=100

m=99

m

=99

m=99

m=10

0

m=99

Voca

lstereotypy

77100

8693

8898

98100

8898

9

6100

100

100

8493

m=86

m=91

m=94

m=99

m=94

m

=98

m=100

m=10

0

m=87

Aggression

100

100

100

100

100

1

00

100

100

100

m=100

m=100

m=100

m=100

m=100

m

=100

m=100

m=10

0

m=100



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that they had observed caregivers deliver preferred items or activities as a response

to the target behavior as a natural part of the clients everyday life. Sessions were

10-min in length for all participants except Jay whose sessions were 5-min. During

the attention condition the participant was given medium-to-low preference toys and

the clinician instructed the participant that they were too busy to play with them atthat time. Contingent upon the participant engaging in the target behavior, the

clinician provided attention in the form of a brief verbal reprimand, e.g., Dont do

that. In the demand condition, the participants were instructed to complete

educational tasks which were taken from their regular EIBI program. Contingent

upon the participant engaging in the target behavior, the task demands were

terminated and materials removed for 30-s, and the clinician informed the child

Okay, you dont have to. In the tangible condition, prior to the onset of a session,

the participants were allowed 2-min access to a highly preferred item which

caregivers had reported being associated with the target behavior. When the sessionbegan, the clinician removed the item or terminated the activity. Contingent upon the

participant engaging in the target behavior, access to the item or activity was restored

for 30-s. At the end of the 30-s interval the item or activity was once again removed

or terminated. In the ignore condition, the participant was in a room with the

clinician, however no items or activities were present, no vocal or physical attention

was provided, and no demands were placed on the participant. Target behaviors

produced no reaction from the clinician. The ignore condition was substituted for the

traditional alone condition, as described by Iwata et al. (1982) because sessions

were conducted in participants

natural home or clinic environments, in which alonesessions were not possible. The play condition served as a control for the other

conditions. In the play condition, the participants had access to highly preferred items

or activities, no demands were given, target behaviors were ignored, and brief vocal

attention was provided on a fixed time 30-s schedule contingent on the absence of the

target behavior for the last 5-s.

Interobserver agreementInterobserver agreement (IOA) was evaluated by having a

second, independent observer collect data on the target behavior for a minimum of 30%

of sessions for all participants. IOA was calculated for each participant by dividing the

smaller number of behaviors scored in each consecutive 10 s interval by the larger

number scored and multiplying by 100. The resulting decimals were then converted to

percentages and averaged across all sessions, within each participant (Table 2).

Results

The results of all three functional assessments for all participants are visually

depicted in Figs. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 and are summarized in Table 3. The results of

this study were interpreted by consensus between three clinicians who had extensive

prior experience conducting the three forms of functional assessments, across a

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Indirect Assessments

The results of the indirect assessments were interpreted according to the QABF Test

Manual (Baton Rouge, LA, www.disabilityconsultants.org). The manual states

When interpreting the QABF, a clear function is considered an endorsement of four

Participant Target behavior %IOA

Vince Verbal protest 90100

m=96

Jay Tantrum 96100

m=99

Ryan Whining 88100

m=96

Rachel Grimacing 86100

m=97

Hank Disruption 93100

m=98

Jonathan Vocal stereotypy 75100

m=83

John Aggression 96100

m=99

Table 2 Range and means of

interobserver agreement for all

participants in the experimental

assessment

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or five of the items endorsed with no other subscales containing significant

endorsements. Since behaviors may have multiple or secondary functions, elevations

of one or more scales need to be interpreted accordingly.

The results of Johns QABF (Fig. 1) suggest that his aggression has multiple

functions. Four of 5 possible functions of behavior are given significant endorsement

(a score of 4 or 5) and moderate to high severity (9 or higher) and three of these

possible functions are of a social nature; attention, escape, and tangible. Of the two

subscales that indicate automatic reinforcement (Non-Social and Physical), only the

Physical subscale had a significant number of endorsements, i.e., 5. Our

interpretation of these results is that Johns aggression is multiply maintained by

positive reinforcement in the form of gaining access to preferred items/activities

(tangible), positive reinforcement in the form of attention, as well as negative

reinforcement in the form of escape from demand situations. The significant

endorsements in the Physical subscale suggest that when ill, or in physical

discomfort, John is more likely to engage in aggressive behavior. Given that the

topography of the behavior is aggression, it seems unlikely that the five endorse-

ments in the Physical subscale would indicate that the behavior was maintained by

automatic reinforcement. That is, it does not seem plausible that aggression would,

in itself, decrease physical discomfort, but rather, that physical discomfort makes it

Fig. 2 Results of indirect, descriptive, and experimental functional assessments for Jays tantrums

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moderate to high severity for the three social functions. Again, these results would

suggest that his tantrum behavior has multiple functions, specifically the social

functions of attention, escape, and tangible. The Physical subscale contained four

endorsements but low severity (i.e., 5), again suggesting that tantrums were not

likely automatically reinforced by decreases in physical discomfort, but rather that

physical discomfort made tantrums more likely to occur for other reasons.

The results of Hanks QABF (Fig. 3) contained maximum endorsements for

attention and escape functions and moderate to high severity for both as well. These

results suggest that Hanks disruptive behavior is multiply maintained by positive

reinforcement in the form of gaining access to attention, as well as negative

reinforcement in the form of escape from demand situations.

The results of Ryans QABF (Fig. 4) contain high endorsements in the Escape,

Physical, and Tangible subscales, but only high severity in the Escape subscale.

These results suggest that his whining behavior was maintained by escape from

demands. Despite significant endorsements in the Tangible and Physical subscales,

the severity score in both was low (8 or below).

The results of Rachels QABF (Fig. 5) contained high endorsements in 4 of 5

subscales, specifically the Attention, Escape, Tangible, and Non-Social. These

results would suggest that the grimacing behavior occurred across many or all

Fig. 3 Results of indirect, descriptive, and experimental functional assessments for Hanks disruption

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reinforcement in the form of gaining access to preferred items/activities, as well as

negative reinforcement in the form of escape from demand situations.

The results of Jonathans QABF (Fig. 7) contained maximum endorsements in all

subscales and high severity in the Non-Social subscale. These results suggest that

Jonathans vocal stereotypy occurred across all situations and therefore was likely

automatically reinforced.

Descriptive Assessments

There are little or no agreed upon rules for visually analyzing ABC data, other than

using behavioral principles and any available information regarding the clients

behavior and setting to interpret the likely function, based on the antecedents and

consequences observed. A significant amount of research has been done on

calculating conditional probabilities to interpret descriptive functional assessment

data (Iwata et al. 2000a; Lerman and Iwata1993) but that method was not chosen for

this study. Calculating conditional probabilities generally requires that specialized

equipment, such as electronic data collection, be used and this is not necessarily a

realistic expectation in many real-life settings. For this reason, the data interpretation

method used in this study was visual inspection of recorded frequencies of

antecedents, behaviors, and consequences, a method which is low-tech and freely

Fig. 4 Results of indirect, descriptive, and experimental functional assessments for Ryans whining



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antecedents and consequence do not match, then interpretation of the results

becomes less clear. In what follows, we present analyses of the results for

antecedents alone, consequences alone, and antecedents and consequences together.

All antecedents observed during Johns descriptive assessment (Fig. 1) fall into

either the demand or denied category, or both. Therefore, the antecedents suggest that

Johns aggression serves both escape from demand and tangible functions. However,

the data indicated that the consequences of the behavior fell into the attention and the

none category most frequently and escape from demands and access to items or

activities were never given as a consequence for Johns aggression. Therefore, when

the antecedent and consequence data are analyzed together, the descriptive assessment

results are inconclusive because the function suggested by the consequence data

disagrees with those suggested by the antecedent data.

The antecedents observed during Jays descriptive assessment (Fig. 2) were highest

in the demand and denied categories. These antecedents suggest that his tantrums

were maintained by escape from demand and access to tangibles. However, escape

and access to tangibles were observed as consequences of the behavior only once

and the consequences suggest automatic reinforcement. When analyzed together, the

antecedent and consequence data are inconclusive because they do not agree.

The antecedent data collected during Hanks descriptive assessment (Fig. 3)

demonstrate higher frequencies in the demand category. These results clearly suggest

Fig. 5 Results of indirect, descriptive, and experimental functional assessments for Rachels grimacing



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The antecedent data collected during Ryans descriptive assessment (Fig. 4)

demonstrate higher frequencies in both the demand and none category. The none

category is significantly higher than the others in the consequence data. When

analyzed together, the antecedent and consequence data suggest automatic

reinforcement because the none category is high in both.

The antecedent data for Rachels descriptive assessment (Fig. 5) demonstrate

higher frequencies in both the demand and none category and a low frequency in the

low attention category. The none category is significantly higher than the others in

the consequence data. When analyzed together, the antecedent and consequence data

suggest automatic reinforcement because the none category is high in both.

The antecedent data for Vinces descriptive assessment (Fig. 6) demonstrate

similar frequencies in the none, demand, and denied categories and therefore do not

suggest a clear function. The consequence data suggest attention as a potential

function because the attention category is clearly differentiated from the others.

When the antecedent and consequence data are analyzed together, the result is

inconclusive because the antecedents and consequences do not support one another.

The antecedent data for Jonathans descriptive assessment (Fig. 7) suggest

automatic reinforcement because the low attention and none categories are higher

Fig. 6 Results of indirect, descriptive, and experimental functional assessments for Vinces verbal

protesting

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Experimental Functional Assessments

The data for Johns EFA (Fig. 1) demonstrate consistently higher rates of aggression

in the demand condition, clearly suggesting that the behavior is sensitive to negative

reinforcement in the form of escape from demands. The data for Jays EFA (Fig. 2)

demonstrate consistently elevated rates of tantrums in the tangible condition only,

therefore suggesting that the behavior is maintained by positive reinforcement in the

form of access to preferred items/activities. The data for Hanks EFA (Fig. 3)

demonstrate consistently higher rates of disruptive behavior in the attention and

Fig. 7 Results of indirect, descriptive, and experimental functional assessments for Jonathans vocal

stereotypy

Table 3 Summary of indirect, descriptive, and experimental functional assessment results

Participant Target behavior Results of assessment

Indirect Descriptive Experimental

John Aggression Attention, Escape, Tangible Inconclusive Escape

Jay Tantrums Attention, Escape, Tangible Inconclusive Tangible

Hank Disruption Escape, Attention Inconclusive Escape, Attention

Ryan Whining Escape Automatic Escape



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demand conditions, suggesting that the behavior is maintained by negative

reinforcement in the form of escape from demands and positive reinforcement in

the form of attention. The data for Ryans EFA (Fig. 4) demonstrate highest rates of

whining in the difficult demand condition, lower rates in the easy demand condition,

and the behavior did not occur in the other conditions, clearly suggesting that Ryanswhining is maintained by negative reinforcement in the form of escape from

demands and that the difficulty of demands influences rates of whining. The data for

Rachels EFA (Fig. 5) demonstrate higher rates in the demand condition than ignore

and play conditions, and an increasing trend in the attention condition, suggesting

that the behavior is maintained by negative reinforcement in the form of escape from

demands and positive reinforcement in the form of attention. The data for Vinces

EFA (Fig. 6) demonstrate clearly differentiated rates of vocal protesting in the

tangible condition and low rates or decreasing trends in all other conditions,

suggesting that the behavior is maintained by positive reinforcement in the form ofaccess to preferred items/activities. The data for Jonathans EFA (Fig. 7) demonstrate

high and undifferentiated rates across all conditions, clearly suggesting that his vocal

stereotypy is maintained by automatic reinforcement.

Agreement Between Assessments

When comparing the results of all the functional assessments (Fig. 3), the indirect

and experimental assessments produced exact agreement (defined as suggesting the

exact same function or functions, and no others) for three of seven participants. Theindirect and experimental assessments produced partial agreement (defined as

suggesting at least one of the same functions) for six of seven participants. When the

antecedents and consequences of the descriptive assessments are analyzed together

and compared with the indirect assessments, the two assessment methods produced

both partial and exact agreement for two of seven participants. The descriptive and

experimental assessments produced partial and exact agreement for one of seven

participants. When all three types of assessments are compared to one another,

partial and exact agreement was obtained for only one of seven participants.

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to compare indirect, descriptive and experimental

functional assessment modalities with children with autism, in terms of whether they

produce conclusive findings and the extent to which the findings produced by each

agree with one another. These points, as well as implications for educational and

clinical practice, are discussed below.

Conclusiveness of Results

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conclusive findings for all seven participants, while the descriptive assessments

produced conclusive results for only three out of seven participants. These results

suggest that, at least for the seven children with autism included in this study,

indirect and experimental assessment methods may more reliably produce

conclusive results than descriptive assessments.Some discussion of why four out of seven descriptive assessments produced

inconclusive results is warranted. For the most part, the data on antecedents and

consequences did not agree with one another, thereby limiting the conclusiveness of

the results. This potential limitation of descriptive assessments has been discussed

frequently in the past (Cooper et al. 2007). One potential factor which may have

contributed to this is the fact that, for six of seven participants in this study, ABC

data were collected during EIBI therapy sessions. It is possible that some degree of

reactivity may have occurred on the part of the therapist who was working with the

participant being assessed. Specifically, all such therapists had prior training onfunctions of behavior and therefore they may have been less likely to allow the child

to escape work as a consequence when they were being videotaped. This is a

potential limitation inherent to all descriptive assessments. It is likely that caregivers

will often behave differently when being observed. It therefore may be likely that the

observer will not have the opportunity to observe the actual antecedents and

consequences which are functionally related to the behavior, thereby limiting the

conclusiveness of the assessment results.

In addition, due to the definition of attention as a consequence (i.e., vocal or

physical interaction was provided by the caregiver within 5-s after the occurrence ofthe target behavior), when therapists continued to implement vocal instructions after

the occurrence of the target behavior, this was scored as attention as a consequence.

Therefore, attention may have been scored frequently as a consequence when

therapists were merely continuing to implement instructions following the target

behavior, and were not delivering attention in reaction to the behavior, per se. This

may explain why attention was a frequently observed consequence in the descriptive

assessments of five out of seven participants and may have made conclusive

interpretation of results more difficult.

Conducting descriptive assessments during EIBI therapy sessions may have had

an additional negative effect on the ability of the assessments to produce conclusive

results. Specifically, the primary activity occurring during these sessions was

therapist-directed educational activities, which involved near-constant interaction

between therapist and participant. Because of the high rate of educational activities,

virtually no periods of low attention occurred at all, thereby limiting the opportunity

for low attention to be observed as an antecedent. Indeed, low attention was not

observed as a frequent antecedent of behavior for any of the participants, even the

ones who engaged in the target behavior at a high rate, throughout the observation

(e.g., Jonathans vocal stereotypy which occurred 98 times in 2 h). The fact that

attention was observed as a frequent consequence but not as a frequent antecedent

prevented the descriptive results from conclusively suggesting an attention function

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90120 min. Although there is no research-based consensus on the recommended

duration of descriptive assessments, many previously published studies have

included assessments of significantly longer duration. For example, Hall (2005)

conducted ABC recording for a total duration of 7.214.6 h, over a 4-week period.

Although Halls results all conclusively suggested attention as the function of behavior for all participants, these results were not supported by the indirect and

experimental assessments for three out of four participants. Similarly, Lerman and

Iwata (1993) conducted descriptive assessments for a total of 612 h with each

participant and found that descriptive assessments produced ambiguous or

inconclusive results in a majority of participants. Although the short duration of

the descriptive assessments in this study may be responsible for the inclusive results

obtained, the inconclusive results obtained by other studies which employed longer

durations make this possibility seem unlikely.

Agreement Between Assessments

Exact agreement Indirect assessments and EFAs produced exact agreement for three

out of seven participants in this study, descriptive and EFAs produced exact

agreement in two out of seven cases, descriptive and indirect assessments produced

exact agreement in two of seven cases, and exact agreement was produced across all

three assessments in only one out of seven participants. These results suggest that

functional assessments of the three types do not produce the same result in the

majority of cases, although the indirect and experimental agreed with one anothermore often than either did with the descriptive assessments.

Partial agreementPartial agreement was obtained significantly more often than

exact agreement. Specifically, the indirect and experimental assessments identified at

least one of the same functions of behavior in six out of seven cases, the descriptive

and experimental assessments produced partial agreement in one out of seven cases,

the indirect and descriptive produced partial agreement in two out of seven cases,

and the three methods of assessment produced partial agreement in only one out of

seven participants.

Although the QABF and experimental assessments produced exactly the same

result for only three out of seven participants, the QABF succeeded in detecting, at a

minimum, all the functions that the experimental identified for every participant but

one. That is, the QABF alone may have identified additional functions which were

false positives, but it only failed to identify the likely correct function in one of

seven cases. An argument may be made that the results of the QABF alone would

have been clinically useful. Designing a treatment that addresses additional

unnecessary functions, but still succeeds in addressing the actual function, may still

be likely to work. In such a treatment, the function of primary concern would be

addressed, thereby likely resulting in a decrease in the target behavior. A treatment

that addresses additional functions that are unnecessary, if done properly and so long



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amount to expanding the individuals communicative repertoire, and would not

likely be detrimental. Therefore, the results of this study suggest that the QABF

alone may, in some cases, be a sufficient form of functional assessment, particularly

when more thorough procedures are not available.

General

Currently, there is a large demand for functional assessment services in the school,

home, and community settings. Functional assessment is recommended by best

practice standards (O Neill et al. 1996) and by legislation (Individuals with

Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C. 1400 et seq. (1975, as amended, 1997) and

the need is therefore not likely to decrease in the near future. Given the large demand

for these services and the relatively small number of qualified professionals (e.g.,

Board Certified Behavior Analysts) that are available to render the services, it shouldbe a priority to identify the most efficient means of functional assessment, whenever

possible. In this study, we did not record the time required to administer the QABF

but the administrators all reported that it required no more than 20 min to complete.

The descriptive assessments required 90120 min of client contact time. Each

experimental assessment required a total of 4 h or less of client contact time. The

descriptive assessments required less time than the experimental ones, a time savings

of approximately 2 h each, but this time savings cannot be considered an advantage

in terms of efficiency when the descriptive assessments did not produce clear results

in a majority of cases. In other words, if only the ABC assessments had been done, itlikely would have been necessary to continue assessment, thereby seriously calling

into question the overall cost-effectiveness of the descriptive assessments, in both

time and money.

It is often recommended that clinicians begin the functional assessment process

with an indirect assessment and then move up to more intrusive and more costly

assessment procedures, as necessary, often proceeding to descriptive assessments

next, and only advancing to experimental assessments if the descriptive procedures

fail to produce clear results (ONeill et al. 1996). The results of this study suggest

that it may be more efficient to begin with an indirect assessment and proceed

directly to experimental procedures if and when the indirect does not produce

conclusive results. This recommendation is in line with the conclusions of other

studies which also found their descriptive assessments to produce inclusive or

potentially inaccurate results (Hall 2005; Lerman and Iwata 1993).

A significant potential limitation to this study is that no data are included on

treatments which were based on the results of the functional assessments. The only

conclusive manner of confirming a functional assessment is to treat the target behavior

with a procedure which addresses the function suggested by the assessment. If the target

behavior decreases then it is likely that the functional hypothesis produced by the

assessment was correct. The assessments included in this study were conducted by

members of the clients clinical teams and the results were shared with all team

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Some common criticisms of experimental functional analyses warrant discussion.

First, it is often said that it is not realistic to expect to be able to conduct

experimental functional assessments in real-life clinical and educational settings

because they require too much specialized training on the part of those who would

implement them. While it is true that all practitioners in human services shouldimplement only those procedures for which they have been adequately trained,

research in recent years has demonstrated that clinicians can be trained to implement

experimental functional analysis sessions relatively rapidly (Iwata et al. 2000b;

Wallace et al. 2004). However, given that experimental functional assessments

intentionally evoke challenging behavior, we recommended that experimental

functional assessments at least be supervised by a clinician with significant

experience, preferably a Board Certified Behavior Analyst.

Another common criticism of EFAs is that they may require highly controlled

analogue environments, such as barren treatment rooms with two-way mirrors. Moreresearch is still needed on the implementation EFAs in the natural environment (Hall

2005). However, the EFAs conducted in the current study were done in the homes of

the participants, except in the case of Jay, whose EFA was conducted in a therapy

room which contained a variety of tables, chairs, a sofa, and a variety of toys.

Therefore, although more research is still needed, it appears as though EFAs can

successfully be conducted in natural settings.

This study compared indirect, descriptive, and experimental functional assess-

ments across seven children with autism, representing a variety of ages and

topographies of challenging behavior. The descriptive assessments did not produceinterpretable results in a majority of participants, while the QABF and experimental

assessments procedures produced relatively conclusive findings for all participants.

More comparative research is needed with children with autism but the current

results suggest that indirect and experimental functional assessment procedures may

be the most cost-effective and reliable options.

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