RESUMEN
It has been more than two decades since the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA; 1997) included language about the use of functional behavior assessments (FBAs) and behavior intervention plans (BIPs) to address the challenging behaviors of students with disabilities in schools. It has been more than ten years since three technical adequacy studies were published that evaluated school-based FBAs' and BIPs' inclusion of essential components and found them to be significantly lacking. The aims of this study were to expand upon the previous research by (a) establishing the psychometric properties of the FBA/BIP Technical Adequacy Evaluation Tool (TATE), (b) evaluating the technical adequacy of 135 completed FBAs and 129 BIPs from 13 school districts across a single state, and (c) comparing the findings to previous studies. The results showed that (a) the TATE has moderate but acceptable internal consistency, excellent inter-rater reliability, and good content validity, (b) the technical adequacy scores of the evaluated products ranged between 40% and 50% of the total components, and (c) most of the BIPs had similar flaws to those seen in the previous research; however, improvement was noted in the FBA components. The implications for practice and suggestions for future research are discussed.
RESUMEN
Serious threats to child safety are infrequent and unpredictable but can lead to serious injury and death. To stay safe, children must identify and avoid contact with a safety threat, escape from it, and report it to an adult so the adult can remove the threat. Research shows that active learning approaches are effective for teaching children to engage in these safety skills. Passive learning approaches are not effective. Active learning approaches require children to practice the skills in the presence of simulated threats with feedback to reinforce correct responses and promote generalization of skills to the natural environment.