A Review of State-Level Guidance for Implementing Functional Behavior Assessments and Behavior Intervention Plans

Implementing functional behavior assessments (FBA) and behavior intervention plans (BIP) to address intensive behaviors continues to challenge educators. State Education Agencies (SEAs) have the capability of delivering FBA/BIP guidance to school districts that is evidence-based, readily available, and useful for consistent application. Although there have been previous studies of SEA guidance, none is recent or examined guidance quality. The purposes of the current study were to review state-level FBA/BIP guidance available on SEA websites to determine the number of states and territories providing guidance and to evaluate the quality of the guidance using a researcher-developed technical adequacy rubric. Results indicated that 38 (68%) of the 56 states/territories provided FBA guidance and 37 (66%) provided BIP guidance; however, most were inadequate. Documents varied from memos to voluminous handbooks with many focusing on compliance rather than evidence-based processes. Implications for practice and suggestions for improving SEA guidance are discussed.