BA430 Unit 8 Skills Assessment Paper Example

Thirty Words and No Way to Say "Wait": A BA430 Unit 8 Skills Assessment Paper

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

BA430: Behavior Assessment

Unit 8 Skills Assessment Paper

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The writer, the cooperative, the student and every score are composite and illustrative; the articles cited are real.

From Function to Skills

The functional analysis showed that Kou's screaming during transitions was maintained mainly by getting his toy truck back. That finding raised a question the analysis could not answer: did Kou have another way to get the truck? If he could ask for it, the team could teach him to use that request instead of screaming. If he could not, the plan would need to teach the skill first. A skills assessment was the way to find out.

Skills assessments in behavior analysis serve two purposes. They identify what a person can already do, which shapes realistic goals, and they identify missing skills that may explain problem behavior. Kou's assessment needed to do both.

Three Tools

Gould et al. (2011) reviewed assessments used to determine the content of early intensive behavioral intervention programs for children with autism, including curriculum-based tools such as the Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program and the Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills, as well as standardized adaptive behavior measures. They concluded that curriculum-based tools are useful for identifying specific teaching targets but that many lacked published evidence of reliability and validity, while standardized measures had stronger psychometric support but were less directly linked to teaching. They recommended combining tools and supplementing them with direct observation.

Following that advice, I used three tools: the curriculum-based language assessment the cooperative uses, an adaptive behavior interview with his teacher and grandmother, and a direct probe of requesting during real transitions.

The Curriculum-Based Assessment

The language assessment showed strengths. Kou could label about thirty objects, pictures and people in Hmong or English, follow one-step instructions and match identical pictures. He scored lower on requesting. He could request a few items when they were in sight and an adult asked "What do you want?" but rarely requested without a prompt, and never requested an action, such as "more," "wait" or "help," or an item that was out of sight.

He could label the truck in two languages and could not ask to keep it.

The Adaptive Behavior Interview

The adaptive behavior interview, conducted with an interpreter for his grandmother, asked about everyday communication, daily living and social skills. It showed a different picture of strengths. At home, Kou dressed himself, helped carry groceries and played simple games with his cousins. His teacher reported fewer daily living skills at school, likely because staff did more for him. Both reported the same communication gap: Kou did not ask for things, and instead took them or screamed.

The Direct Probe

Because the tools were based on testing and reports, I probed requesting directly during ten transitions over a week. Before asking Kou to put the truck away, his paraprofessional waited five seconds to see if he would ask to keep it, then modeled the word "truck" and waited again. Kou never asked independently. After a model, he said "truck" in four of ten probes, and when he did, the paraprofessional let him carry it; he did not scream on those four occasions. On the other six, he screamed.

The Link to Problem Behavior

Carr and Durand (1985) showed that problem behavior can fall when a child learns to communicate for the very outcome the behavior was producing. In their study, children whose problem behavior increased during difficult tasks or reduced attention were taught to ask for help or attention, and their problem behavior decreased. The communicative response worked because it served the same function as the problem behavior.

Kou's results fit their account closely. His screaming produced the truck, and he had no reliable request that did the same. When he did say "truck" after a model and received it, he did not scream. The skills assessment confirmed that a missing request explained much of the problem behavior and pointed directly to treatment.

Goals from the Assessment

The assessment led to three teaching goals. First, Kou will request the truck with a word or picture card, without a model, before transitions. Second, he will accept "wait" with a visual timer and receive the truck after the wait, a skill that will let staff thin access over time. Third, he will request "help" when a task is difficult, a skill the curriculum assessment identified as missing and his teacher wanted. His grandmother asked that the words be taught in Hmong as well as English, so that he could use them at home, and the speech therapist agreed to support both.

A Second Case for Comparison

Brynn's skills assessment, run the same month, showed how differently the same tools can read for another student. Her adaptive scores were strongest in daily living skills, consistent with her work on the family ranch, and weakest in self-direction, which covers recognizing and reporting her own needs. Her reading and math skills were near a third-grade level, which meant many of her worksheets were well above what she could do alone. That finding added a second explanation for the tearing alongside her sleep: some work was simply too hard. Her teacher began printing two versions of each worksheet, one adjusted to her level, and the team added the adjusted work to her plan before the functional assessment began.

Using Skills Assessment as a Cusp

Bosch and Fuqua (2001) described behavioral cusps as behaviors that open access to new reinforcers and environments. Requesting is a likely cusp for Kou. A child who can ask for things gains access to many reinforcers without problem behavior, and adults are more likely to include him in new activities. The assessment showed that a small set of requests, taught well, might change more than his transitions.

Limits of the Assessment

The assessment had limits. The curriculum-based tool lacks published reliability data, as Gould and colleagues noted of many such tools, and the adaptive interview depended on informants' reports. The direct probe was brief. Together, though, the three tools agreed on the central gap, which gave the team more confidence than any one tool alone.

Conclusion

Kou could label thirty objects in two languages but could not ask to keep his truck. Combining a curriculum-based assessment, an adaptive interview and a direct probe, as Gould and colleagues recommend, identified the missing request, and Carr and Durand's work showed why teaching it could reduce screaming that served the same function. The resulting goals were requesting, waiting and asking for help in both of his languages.

References

Bosch, S., & Fuqua, R. W. (2001). Behavioral cusps: A model for selecting target behaviors. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 34(1), 123-125. https://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.2001.34-123

Carr, E. G., & Durand, V. M. (1985). Reducing behavior problems through functional communication training. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 18(2), 111-126. https://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.1985.18-111

Gould, E., Dixon, D. R., Najdowski, A. C., Smith, M. N., & Tarbox, J. (2011). A review of assessments for determining the content of early intensive behavioral intervention programs for autism spectrum disorders. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 5(3), 990-1002. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rasd.2011.01.012