Functional Analysis of Behaviour

Understanding behaviour is a tricky thing. Behaviour, experts say, is communication. It is not always easy to understand why a certain behaviour is occurring in an individual. This is even more so in children on the spectrum. They say it is important to see not just what type of behaviour is occurring but what is causing the behaviour - what happenned immediately before the behaviour occurred or in the past hours, even days - and what is the consequence of that behaviour - how people around that child react to that behaviour. Each section - cause, behaviour and consequence (Antecedent,Behaviour,Consequence or ABC)- needs to be observed and carefully recorded for patterns in terms of environment, sequence and time of day before a plan can be made to remedy what may be a negative occurrence successfully. The observation period in case of a non-verbal child could be a long process and could take days or even weeks in some cases. The key, they say, is a careful observation of the ABC of each occurrence. In short, they note, a functional analysis of the behaviour is critical for putting a successful remedial plan in place.