How Antecedent Factors Evaluation Form Can be Useful
Ben is a 12-year-old, fourth grade student at a local elementary school. He has been diagnosed with a learning disability and has an Individualized Education Plan (IEP). Ben engages in several behaviors that are viewed as major problem behaviors by his teacher. These behaviors include refusing to follow directions, failing to complete work, not paying attention when the teacher is talking, and making disruptive comments during instructional time. The school protocol is to address these behaviors with office discipline referrals but these do not appear to have an impact on his behaviors.
Choose one specific indirect assessment tool reviewed in Chapter 7 of your assigned reading and describe how that particular tool can be useful in teasing out potentially controlling variables and reinforcing stimuli associated with the target behavior in your hypothetical scenario.
Unit 5 Discussion: Screening and Assessment
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Unit 5 Discussion: Screening and Assessment
The Antecedent Factors Evaluation Form is one unique indirect assessment instrument that might help elucidate possibly regulating variables and reinforcing stimuli connected with Ben's target behaviors (AVAF) (Berg et al., 2021). The purpose of the AVAF is to locate elements that act as precursors or initiators of disruptive activity. It includes questions covering four variables: environmental, instructional, social, and transition. These four aspects are often connected to interrupting behaviors. The AVAF enabled Ben's teacher to pinpoint contextual variables causing some of his troubling behaviors.
For instance, if Ben's teacher fulfills the AVAF, they can learn that specific contextual conditions set off Ben's troublesome behaviors. These elements could be the classroom's climate, lighting, or sound levels (Dunham, 2022). Alternately, the AVAF may show that instructional factors, such as the amount of cognitive load or the manner of instruction, may affect Ben's problematic behaviors. The teacher can alter Ben's environment or lesson by identifying these triggers to reduce his propensity for bad behaviors.
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