I recently attended a workshop run by Greg Hanley, hosted by UK-SBA. It was great to finally meet him and hear him speak about his approach to problem behaviour. I had previously heard him speak on podcasts (find links below), so was good to hear him speak in more detail, and have the opportunity to ask questions. The workshop was quite interactive and Greg Hanley wanted to ensure the training was more hands-on and to help us problem solve as we went through the material.
The workshop focused on the previous work Greg Hanley and his colleagues have worked on around Functional Analysis. Traditionally, within the field the most well known and popular Functional Analysis is the one developed by Brian Iwata in 1982. Greg Hanley proposes that behaviours can not always be summarised under the four main functions of behaviour (sensory/automatic, tangible, attention, or escape/avoidance) and that an interaction between these functions reliably produce behaviours. Considering this, he has developed a intervention that reduces problem behaviours and replaces these behaviours with an appropriate behaviours (an appropriate request, tolerating no/denial, and following instructions).
The Assessment was previously known as the IISCA (Interview Informed Synthesized Contingency Analysis), but is now being referred to as the Practical Functional Assessment (visit the website for more information and resources; https://practicalfunctionalassessment.com/). To learn more about Greg Hanley’s work, see the recommendations below, or explore his publications. I definitely recommend you attend a workshop or conference to hear him speak! In addition, if you are a practitioner, join the closed Facebook Group ‘BCBAs using the IISCA’. If you have any questions or queries, please comment below or you can contact me directly.
Further Reading/Listening
Beavers, G. A., Iwata, B. A. & Lerman, D. C. (2013). Thirty years of research on the Functional Analysis of problem behaviour. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 46, 1-21.
Behavior Observations: Session 1
Behavior Observations: Session 7
Behavior Observations: Session 20
Busy Analytical Bee, October 2015, Functional Assessments, retrieved from: https://busyanalyticalbeedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/october14.pdf
Data Finch Technologies, June 2018, Gregory Hanley, PhD, BCBA-D | Functional Assessment of severe problem behavior of persons with ASD, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB65QnVkKjw
DataFinch Technologies, June 2018, Gregory Hanley, PhD, BCBA-D | Preventing sever problem behaviour, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGEqN9s8jFQ]
Iwata, B. A., Pace, G. M., Doresey, M. F., Zarcone, J. R., Vollmer, T. R., Smith, R. G. & Willis K. D. (1994) The Functions of self-injurious behaviour: An experimental-epidemenological analysis. Journal of Applied Behaviour Analysis, 27, 215-240.
Practical Functional Assessment, Retreived from: https://practicalfunctionalassessment.com/
Busy Analytical Bee 