Discussion
The goal of this investigation was to evaluate a treatment approach for young
children with challenging behaviors that incorporates three key intervention elements
— functional assessment, collaboration, and evidence-based treatment. The primary
purpose of our research was to examine the effects of the FACET program on both
positive and negative classroom behaviors among pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, and
first-grade children who were targeted for intervention because they exhibited
challenging behaviors that interfered with their learning and development. Overall,
implementation of FACET was associated with an increase in positive behaviors,
reduction in challenging behaviors, and higher performance of individual goal
behaviors from baseline to post-intervention. Furthermore, compared to children in
control classrooms, FACET children evidenced a higher frequency of positive
behaviors and fewer negative behaviors at post-intervention. Positive outcomes were
achieved for children when the FACET program was implemented with training and
consultation from the authors (FOC children), as well as for children when the
program was implemented without consultative support (GEN children). The positive
impact on the classroom behavior of GEN children, although not as strong as for FOC
children, was particularly important for several reasons. First, this provided evidence
that teams were able to generalize their knowledge and skills about functional
assessment and behavior support to implement FACET without requiring extensive
consultation. By design, teams received ongoing coaching and support from the
consultants (authors) as they conducted a functional assessment, developed a
comprehensive behavior support plan (CBSP), implemented the intervention, and
monitored progress for the FOC child; however, they completed these steps for a
second GEN child without scaffolded support from the consultants. Second, it appears
that many of the positive support strategies designed to address the behavior of FOC
children involved classroom environmental variables that were inevitably applied to
other students within the classroom, including GEN children with similar challenging
behaviors. The significant improvement in one classroom behavior, Social Cooperation,
for GEN children before treatment implementation was likely due to the overall