Workshop on “FUNCTIONAL BEHAVIOURAL ANALYSIS” was organized by the department of M.Sc. Counselling for the I M.Sc. Counselling students on 25th and 26thMarch 2021. The resource person for the workshop was Ms. Christy Francis. The workshop commenced with a prayer by Sr. Liji, followed by the welcome speech by Ms. Hensita D’costa. After this, students were asked to introduce themselves to the trainer.
Ms. Christy Francis began her session with a brief introduction regarding ‘Functional behavioural analysis’. She explained how functional behavioural analysis grew from functionalism and behaviouristic school. Trainer also gave a brief overview on the principles of operant and classical conditioning. She gave us a clear definition of ‘behaviour’ and also provided us knowledge on how we can identify behaviour along with characteristics of the behaviour.
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Resource person explained about the difference between functional behavioural assessments and behavioural analysis. The trainer further offered knowledge on the meaning, goals, characteristics, and the uses of functional behavioural assessments. After this she enriched the participants with the information on behavioural analysis i.e. science of controlling and predicting human behaviour. Further she gave them a considerable amount of information on the analysis of the behaviour through A-B-C Method, where ‘A’ stands for the antecedent event, ‘B’ is the behaviour and the ‘C’ stands for the consequences of the behaviour.
After explaining the theoretical part, trainer divided the participants into groups of three and asked them to do the behavioural analysis through role play or a simulated counselling session. As the first step of behavioural analysis, participants collected the case history of the client i.e. Socio- demographic details, presenting complaints of the client and the history of the presenting illness [HOPI]. After collecting the case history, participants were explained about the different types of questions that should be asked under antecedent event, behaviour of the client and consequences of the behaviour for the purpose of behavioural analysis. Through this role play participants got a clear idea about the ways for conducting behavioural analysis.
The trainer winded up the session by explaining the participants the causes and management of the problematic behaviour. The participants got knowledge about the steps that a therapist needs to take to tackle the problematic behaviour of a client. The training session on the first day got over by clarifying the doubts about the concept.
Training session on day 2 began with understanding the ABC of challenging behaviour. The resource person explained to the participants various concepts under it, which were Motivating Operations, Antecedent or trigger, Challenging Behaviour, Consequence, Identifying function(s), and the types of interventions namely Antecedent Strategies, Replacement Skills and Consequence strategy.
Participants were then introduced to the Kanfer and Saslow Model and the questions that need to be addressed within the model. The trainer acquainted the participants to the SORKC Model for analysis of behaviour. She also made them understand the 7 stages of understanding behaviour which were Initial analysis of Problem, Clarification of Problem Situation, Motivation Analysis, Developmental Analysis, Analysis of Self-Control, Analysis of Social Relationships, Analysis of Social, Cultural and Physical factors. Participants then had discussion on the cautions to be aware of while using the model.
The resource person then divided the participants into groups of three to understand this model through a simulated therapy session. Participants were first told to establish rapport with the client as it is an important part of any counselling session. Through this session participants understood clearly how to use the SORKC Model to analyse challenging behaviour and understand it through the 7 stages mentioned above.
The resource person then asked for queries and clarifications with the participants with which she concluded day 2 of the session. It was a very enriching experience for the student participants, where they understood the fundamentals of Functional Behavioural Assessment and Analysis i.e. the ABC Model and Kanfer and Saslow Model.
