Meta‐Analysis of Function‐Based Behavioral Treatment Outcomes in Acquired Brain Injury Rehabilitation

ABSTRACT Challenging behavior following acquired brain injury can limit access to care and endanger both patients and providers. This meta‐analysis extends prior work by examining the relative efficaciousness of treatments based upon outcomes of indirect, descriptive, and functional analysis. Forty‐seven single‐case design studies were included and categorized by their use of functional behavior assessment procedures (i.e., indirect assessment, descriptive assessment, and functional analysis) and function‐based treatments. Treatment effects were evaluated using both visual analysis and standard mean difference (SMD); outcomes of both analyses showed that treatments based on functional analysis outcomes produced the highest proportion of clinically significant improvements. Treatments that were not function‐based were less effective. These findings provide further support for behavioral interventions in brain injury rehabilitation and illustrate that treatment effectiveness is enhanced when interventions are informed by more robust FBA methods particularly functional analysis.