An opportunity to affect entire student populations in the effort to promote
mental health but that resists being universally applied is the use of positive behavior
management approaches. In many schools, behavior management based on variables that
tend to negatively impact school engagement and functioning still predominates in some
locations. Such behavior management approaches are based on interventions emphasizing
factors such as punishment for rule violations rather than teaching and reinforcing rule
adherence. The continued use of negative approaches to behavior management is puzzling,
since substantial data supports numerous positive behavior management methodologies and
techniques. One approach thus described is functional behavior assessment and functionbased
intervention planning. Though sometimes criticized as too difficult or impractical for
the typical classroom teacher, we propose that, given certain caveats, educators can employ
the techniques effectively and with positive results. This review summarizes a sample of
the literature on function-based interventions utilized by teachers to reduce disruptive
behaviors of students. This review was included in 20 articles published between 2001 and
2009 across 9 peer-reviewed journals. Studies included in the review met the following
criteria: teachers implemented the interventions utilized as well as participated in the
intervention development process; students displayed disruptive behavior that interfered
with their own or others academic success; and each intervention was function-based,
meaning it was created from data collected and analyzed from a functional behavioral
assessment. The reviewed studies support the contention that teachers can implement
function-based interventions and participate in the process of creating the interventions
utilized to reduce disruptive behavior of students.
Keywords: Evidence based, functional analysis, functional behavior assessment
(FBA), functional behavior intervention (FBI), positive behavior supports.
