ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses beginning special educators and focuses on their roles and responsibilities when it comes to students who need individualized behavior support. It describes a functional approach to understanding behavior and introduces functional behavior assessment (FBAs) as a high leverage practice to develop individualized behavior support plans (BSPs). The chapter explores critical components of FBAs, hypothesis statements generated from FBA results, and individualized BSPs. It overviews the value of FBAs and BSPs for students with the most intensive needs and provides beginning special educators a starting point to develop these important skillsets. The chapter also describes two examples to illustrate how results of FBAs are used to generate hypothesis statements and how hypothesis statements are then used to develop individualized BSPs. It encourages special educators to solicit support from other team members when conducting FBAs. Indirect assessments include interviews, checklists, questionnaires, and rating scales.
