There are many positive outcomes that can result from IEP teams effectively conducting functional behavioral assessments under the appropriate circumstances. These include enabling the student to derive meaningful benefit from the IEP through skill development and reduction in problem behavior, providing staff with positive approaches to short and long term intervention with the student across circumstances and settings, and more effectively integrating relevant information about the student and contributing factors associated with problem behavior from a variety of sources. In short, the insight gleaned by the team as a result of conducting a functional behavioral assessment can be directly translated into effective strategies and interventions that result in positive outcomes for all involved in the process. The process of coming to an understanding of why a student engages in challenging behavior is referred to as functional assessment , or as stated in the IDEA, functional behavioral assessment. The purpose of functional behavioral assessment is to gather broad and specific information in order to better understand the specific reasons for the student's problem behavior.
Teams develop hypothesis statements as a result of the assessment process.
The first stage of a functional behavioral assessment is to gather broad information about the student's skills, abilities, interests, preferences, general health, and well being. This information is essential to design effective behavior support plans that assist the student to achieve outcomes that positively impact upon his or her quality of life as well as reduce problem behavior.