Functional Behavioral Assessment is defined as a process aimed to analyze and evaluate problem behavior patterns of students with special needs The influences of special education and the mental health movement upon the development of school psychology should have provided a basis for school psychologists to develop roles that emphasize intervention as well as assessment. Unfortunately, this has not been the case. School psychologists were born of the necessity for diagnosticians (Borgmeier and Horner 2006). Well-trained professionals capable of making important educational classification decisions were required. In response to this pressing need, psychologists turned to the tools available at the time, psychological tests. Looking around for techniques to make their decisions more objective and reliable, they found few methods had been developed to refine their decision-making process. As a result, school psychologists began relying on individual intelligence scales, achievement tests, and personality measures in performing assessments. The applicability of this approach to schoolbased problems was never questioned because most psychologists in schools at the time were trained in a
clinical, diagnostic model. Cone (1997) described functional behavior assessment (EBA) as activities involved in formulating hypotheses about controlling variables that maintain a behavior, whereas functional behavior assessment refers to the experimental manipulation of the variables to demonstrate a causal relationship between the controlling variable and the problem behavior (Stage et al 2002, p. 71). The logic in this model seemed straightforward. Arriving at a diagnostic decision points one toward selection of appropriate treatment techniques. Derived from a medical model, this perspective makes sense. Until one decides whether one has a virus or bacterial infection, the correct medication cannot be prescribed. Borrowing this model and translating to educational terms, it is thought that until one decides whether one is mentally retarded, learning disabled, or emotionally disturbed, the appropriate educational program cannot be prescribed. As school psychologists began considering alternatives to their diagnostic model, the profession was undergoing drastic changes. More than any other issue, school psychologists have been searching for professional identity (Chamberlain, 2005).