Mental health articles

Functional analysis of challenging behaviour
Although the behaviour itself may be inappropriate, the need that it is
meeting is not. Functional analysis is a type of assessment that is done to
work out the function of the behaviour for the person involved. By doing a
functional analysis of the challenging behaviour psychologists can work
out the best way to teach someone a more appropriate way of letting
people know what they want. The aim is not to get rid of the behaviour,
but to replace it with more acceptable and appropriate ones. This is more
likely to be successful when it is based on the findings of a functional
analysis.