Lifestyle enhancement involves significant diminishing of inappropriate student behavior, improvement in academic outcomes, and building appropriate teacher strategies.
The Functional Assessment and Behavior Support Plan instrument may be found in Appendix A.
Why Conduct a functional Assessment? The purpose of functional assessment is to gather information in order to understand a student's problem behavior. However, a functional behavior assessment goes beyond the"symptom" (the problem behavior) to the student's underlying motivation to escape, avoid, or get something. Government-sponsored research, as well as educators' and psychologists' experiences, have demonstrated that behavior intervention plans stemming from the knowledge of why a student misbehaves(i.e., based on a functional behavioral assessment) are extremely useful in addressing a wide range of problems.
Through these inquiries, a teacher can begin to understand the child in his or her care. An understanding of the child's behavioral habits provides a basis for considering ways in which to meet the child's academic and social needs. Posing these questions necessarily requires a teacher to evaluate his or her pedagogical approach to teaching and, hence, classroom management techniques. Only a thorough examination of classroom methods and a clear understanding of the children with whom he or she is charged will enable a teacher to provide a successful learning experience.