4 Functions of Behavior, FBAs, and a Nervous System Approach {EP 271}

Robyn: And, without question, those aren't bad questions; they can be really useful and super important questions, for sure. And they are focusing on the impact of the behavior, and they kind of keep us focused on the part of the behavior that we can really see. The thing is, for me, is that the parents that I've been working with for the last two decades, parents of kids with big baffling behaviors, y'all have already spent a lot of energy focused on exactly that, and essentially, that's what all behavior management systems do, is look at the impact of the behavior, and then how can we reinforce either positively or negatively that behavior, and the reality is, is that those kinds of behavior management systems, they're just not working for the vast majority of those of y'all who are listening, that's why you're listening to this specific show. If your child's behaviors were easily navigated with pretty traditional behavior management, behavior modification techniques or plans, you probably would have never even tuned into this show. When I say the behavior starts in the nervous system, I'm not denying that there's a function to that behavior once that behavior emerges and has an impact. I'm just asking a slightly different question. I'm asking, but what is happening inside this person at the moment that the behavioral impulse was fired at that moment that that neuron fired, which is milliseconds before the behavior emerges and has an impact? 

Robyn: And when we're talking about the brain, a millisecond is actually a very long time. Focusing on the impact of the behavior or the function of it hasn't helped those of you listening in the past, again, if it hasn't helped, or if it had helped, you wouldn't even be listening to this podcast. It's not that the function and the impact don't matter, of course it does. It's just that we have to shift our focus. We've got to shift our focus. All behavior starts in the nervous system, all, absolutely all behavior, and behavior isn't necessarily something that's bad. Behavior is just what we can see and observe on the outside, and it all starts in the nervous system, and it starts either from a nervous system in protection mode or one in connection mode. Now, does that mean all behavior starts from a stress response? Well, no, of course not. I mean, all sorts of behaviors come from connection mode, like I'm sitting here podcasting right now, and I am not having a stress response, but podcasting, sitting here talking, and all the things that go into me creating this episode, those are all behaviors. So, do all behaviors. Years come from a stress response. No, of course not. But usually when we are talking about behavior, when we're using that word behavior, we tend to be talking about behavior that we would like to see change.

Robyn: And yeah, the theory that underlies all of my work would say that that kind of behavior, the kind of behavior we want to change, probably is emerging from protection mode, and therefore, yes, it is indeed a stress response. Another one of the things I've also noticed in the language of the four functions of behavior, which I know I haven't even articulated yet, but I will very briefly in just a moment. But something else that I've noticed about this language of the four functions of behavior is that it very quickly starts to sound really judgmental, even if nobody intends for it to be expressed judgmentally. It sort of just is, like attention seeking, escaping, avoiding these all have a negative connotation to them, and that focus can and does subtly shift our attention towards what the child is doing, kind of like to us, instead of what is happening inside of them. So today we're going to talk about those four functions of behavior, where they came from, because I actually think the history is a little bit interesting, and it's something I had to research for this episode, and then we're going to talk about what I think is missing from that paradigm. What's missing if we only look at the function of behavior and disregard the nervous system underneath it, these two ways of looking at behavior aren't necessarily in contradiction of each other, and I think that will be really clear by the time we get to the end of this. Okay, so let's back up here. What are the four functions of behavior, and where did those four functions come from? Now, a super quick little disclaimer here is that applied behavior analysis, functional behavior assessments, these are not my area of expertise. I am not behavior analysis. I am not trained in behavior analysis. 

Robyn: I am not trained in FBAs. I am not presenting myself as an excellent historian of behavior analysis. I've just done enough research to try to understand the basics here, because historical context always helps us make sense of things and gives us some ideas about kind of where to go from here, but without question, if this conversation kind of piques your interest, please, please, please do your own reading and research about the history here. The four functions of behavior from the world of applied behavior analysis, or ABA, sits on the belief that every behavior, especially behaviors that are considered quote unquote problem behaviors, can be sorted into kind of four buckets based on what it's getting the kid or what it's getting them out of. Bucket number one is attention. It's behavior that gets a reaction or response or engagement from another person. Bucket number two is escape or avoidance. It's a behavior that gets the kid out of something or away from something, a demand, a task, a situation, something that they don't want. Bucket three is what's called access to tangibles. The behavior gets the kid a thing, an object, an activity, something they want. And then bucket number four is sensory. Sometimes it's described as automatic. The behavior produces its own feedback internally, regardless of what somebody else does, it's kind of regulating something inside the body without, with or without another person being involved. 

Robyn: So those are the four identified functions of behavior and functional behavior analysis. Let's talk about where this idea came from, because I think that the historical context of things is always very interesting and very important to holding context, so based on my, albeit very limited understanding, what has eventually evolved into this four function model traces back to landmark study from 1982 where researchers were trying to understand self-injurious behaviors, kids and grown-ups with developmental disabilities who were doing things like head banging, face slapping, biting themselves, really, really serious behaviors that needed to stop because they were being really harmful, and at the time many of the existing ways that people were responding to these severe behaviors were really harsh, they were very physically intrusive. Which is kind of ironic, because it was trying to stop physically harmful behavior; the kinds of ways they were addressing this behavior, that's like physical restraint, aversive procedures, maybe even electric shock.

Robyn: Okay, so when starting to look at the function of behavior, there was a very clear interest in doing something better, like doing something more humane, and so the idea was instead of just trying to like punish the behavior into stopping, what if we could figure out what the behavior was actually doing for this person, like what was reinforcing it, and then, if we could figure that out, maybe we could change the situation around the child or the adult, instead of just punishing that person. So, again, I think that the historical context is important, because it was indeed a very important step away from punitive practices, and really it was very person-centered to start considering, like, what is this behavior doing for this person? How is it getting reinforced? The actual motivation behind this line of research was to move away from pure punishment. These were people trying to do something more humane than what was happening before, and we also need to remember that this was four decades ago, and research continues to ask a lot of really great questions about what behavior really is, and we have learned a lot in the past four decades, okay, so the work around the function of behavior evolved into what we now know as this four function model: attention, escape, tangible, and sensory or automatic reinforcement. It became the backbone of functional behavior assessments, the FBAs, which are now used. I would say everywhere. 

Robyn: I don't know if that's an exaggeration, but at least here in the US, we see FBAs in schools, in therapies, right, behavior intervention plans that are attempting to get problematic behavior to change, and we are using these FBAs for really basically any behavior that gets flagged as disruptive or non-compliant, not just self-injurious behaviors. The purpose of identifying the function is to then design an intervention. The methodology was built to identify the environmental variables or influences on behavior, so that something about the environment, the consequences, or the reinforcement could be changed. And in practice, when we're talking about problem behavior, the goal is usually to reduce that behavior. You figure out what's enforcing it, so that you can change the reinforcement, so that the behavior happens less, and that's great. I mean, totally fair enough. I'm actually not even debating this, though. I don't love what has all become like a pretty negative way of looking at a child and their behavior. I think it's kind of reductionistic. I mean, sure, behavior helps us avoid things we don't want to do, but without more curiosity, it certainly sends the message that the person is just like lazy or unwilling to do hard things, and I just think things are way more complicated than that, but again, I'm not really debating the theory behind this kind of four function of behaviors model, and also the function isn't being identified because someone has gotten curious about the child's subjective inner experience, right? It was a tool that is designed to identify environmental factors influencing the behavior, so let's look at how we could find some gaps in this model when we think also about what we understand about behavior from a relational neuroscience perspective. 

Robyn: Well, one of the things that I notice, as I do a little look into understanding FBAs, is that we're looking at behavior that is flagged as problematic, not all behavior, right? Nobody's doing FBAs on kids who are quietly reading or sharing with their peers, or you know, using their regulation skills in an age-appropriate way. Right, we are doing FBAs on kids who have behaviors that are already been labeled as disruptive. Okay, this isn't about behavior in general. Well, it's about behavior that somebody else has identified as problematic, and if we're going to talk about a theory of behavior, it really should explain all behavior, not just flagged behavior.

Robyn: Another thing that I think is pretty tricky about the model is that this is all pretty subjective and essentially relies on a behavior kind of crossing an adult's threshold of okay versus not okay behavior, so for example, a child who's humming in class, I mean, some adults wouldn't even notice this, they would never identify it as a problematic behavior because they're not even noticing it, or if they are noticing it, it's not kind of crossing that adult's own threshold as disruptive or problematic, and then, of course, other adults are going to flag it as problematic because it's annoying them, or because it seems like it's disrupting others, and I've definitely also observed a lot of behavior that I personally would describe as assertive kids using their voice, while other folks would call it rude, a problem, right? And then maybe give it a function like task avoidance, so I just think it's really important to hold in mind that it's often talked about that a kid's behavior has a function as though it's a neutral fact, when really the first filter that was applied was somebody's judgment that it needed to stop. Now, in no way, shape, or form am I contradicting the reality that, without question, there's a lot of behavior that needs to stop. It's hurting the person, it's hurting someone else, it's violating other people's boundaries. 

Robyn: Of course, some behavior does need to stop, and there also actually is a lot of behavior that the need for it to stop is pretty subjective. Okay, so another gap I think in looking at behavior through this kind of functions of behavior model is that it's describing the behavior on the outside, not on the inside, right? It's describing what the behavior does, what it gets, what it's enforced by, reinforced by, and it says absolutely nothing about what's happening in the nervous system like a half a second before the behavior actually shows up. When I say that all behavior makes sense, which is something I say all the time, if you've listened to this show before, or you've read Raising Kids with Big Baffling Behaviors. When I say that all behavior makes sense, I'm emphasizing that it makes sense at the moment the neural impulse is fired. Okay, it matches the nervous system and the person's prediction about what's about to happen next. The impact of a behavior surely could be exceptionally baffling and be what we would call maladaptive, but the moment that behavioral impulse is fired, it's adaptive and it makes sense. So we end up with kind of two separate questions here, right? Like an FBA question is what does this behavior get this kiddo, whereas what I'm asking is why did this nervous system generate this impulse? It's two different questions, kind of looking at two different layers, right? They're not negating one another. 

Robyn: We're just looking at a behavior in kind of two different layers, naming the function and naming the nervous system state could indeed both be true of the same behavior at the same time. Those things don't have to be in conflict, so maybe they're not in conflict, but when we're not asking what's happening in the nervous system that's prompting this avoidance behavior, attention-seeking behavior, or whatever behavior, right? If we're not asking what's happening in the nervous system, we are overlooking an enormous part of the equation, and again, if looking at the function of the behavior was enough to support us and helping behavior change, that would be great, but you know, I've got 2 million people listening to this podcast, because it's not been enough to answer that question. The questions aren't actually in conflict with one another. There's one question, and then there's a question that looks at the behavior even deeper, and we can absolutely look deeper at what's happening, and in fact we must look deeper at what's happening, and we know that we must, because what we've been doing is not been effective for those of you who are listening to this podcast now there have. Been a lot of folks in the past, I don't know, decades, who have started to talk about needing to go a layer deeper, right, than what we are doing in traditional FBA, right?

Robyn: There are absolutely lots and lots and lots of professionals who are already moving past like blame-based language, or they're reframing toward asking whether a behavior reflects an emotion that a kid can't handle yet, or maybe a skill that they don't have yet, or a need that's not being met, or a problem they can't be solved, and that gets paired with, like, a let's help them stance, and that's amazing. That is huge, important progress. I'm so, so, so grateful that we are in fact doing that right, that we can move away from blaming the kid to asking what they're missing, and it still isn't explicitly, intentionally looking at the nervous system state. So, for me, I just think we have another layer to go, and in 10 years there'll be another layer to go from here too. That's the cool thing about science, is that what we know today is going to change, and we're going to redo everything we thought we knew again. And I think that's a really cool part of science. So let's kind of ground here in our one big core foundational truth. All behavior starts in the nervous system as a neural impulse. Every single time, there's no exceptions. That's true of any function, that's true of flagged behavior, that's true of unflagged behavior. All behavior, which is what we can see on the outside, starts as a neural impulse, which is started in the nervous system. Assigning a function doesn't contradict the nervous system origin. I mean, both can be true at once. It's kind of like how I never ever disagree with parents when they describe to me a behavior as like manipulative, for example. I mean, it surely might be a manipulative behavior. 

Robyn: So, I don't disagree with parents when they say, Well, that behavior is manipulative. I might say, like, 'Yeah, you're right, it totally is. And I want to keep digging; I want to keep looking at what's happening in the nervous system. The brain's primary job, right, it's to predict what's about to happen and keep that person alive. Okay, the brain isn't just reacting to what's already happened; it's predicting what is about to happen, and it's generating a behavioral impulse based on that prediction. That prediction is built largely out of what has happened to us in the past, what has kept this nervous system safe before, right. And then, of course, there's, you know, we're using what's happening in the here and now as well to make sense of what's happening, but we're largely using what's happened to us in the past to predict what's going to happen next. We talk all the time about how felt safety is about both what's happening in the now and everything that's happened in the past, right? And felt safety is what shifts a nervous system into connection mode or protection mode, and it's from there that the neural impulse starts way, way, way before there's a function; it starts with a nervous system state. 

Robyn: Now, if you're new to the show, what you're going to want to do is scroll back to episode 198, All Behavior Makes Sense. Check out that episode. I also have a free infographic over on my web page. The all behavior makes sense, no behavior is maladaptive kind of one-pager infographic. But the bottom line is, behavior isn't only a reaction of what's happening right now, it's a prediction built from everything that's happened before, what's happening right now, and what has the system learned that has kept them the safest in previous moments like this one, kids with vulnerable, sensitized nervous systems, right, for them starting at this layer at what's happening in the nervous system isn't, we're not starting there just because it's true, it's true for all people, but for kids with vulnerable, sensitized nervous systems, we're starting here at the behavioral impulse, because it is the most effective place to start. The reality is that an FBA-triggering behavior comes from protection mode; it might also be attention seeking or intended to get something that they want, but that doesn't negate the reality that it's coming from protection mode. So, for example, one function of behavior is to get something. Again, implicit in this statement is that the something isn't something.

Robyn: Something that the child has easy access to, so they want this something, but can't get it, so they have a behavior that's an attempt to get it. Some might ask, well, is that a behavior coming from protection mode, or is that just about wanting to get what you want? Is that a behavior that's a stress response, and the answer is yes, absolutely. We got to remember that every nervous system gets a flicker, at least, of protection mode energy if we kind of metaphorically or literally reach for something, desire something, and we can't obtain what we're reaching for or seeking, so that little flicker of protection mode, that's not necessarily dysregulation; it's just what happens when desire meets a wall. This is a very human and very important nervous system response. So the variable isn't whether protection mode shows up or not when somebody doesn't get what they want. Okay, it always does. The variable is like what happens next, which depends on a whole lot of things, but the two things that I'm going to talk about right now is one, it depends on that person's ability to kind of like find another way to meet that need, can they ask, can they negotiate, can they problem solve, right? 

Robyn: Can they use their owl brain? If I don't get something that I want, protection mode gives me like this little flicker of, hey, well, I should do something right, and if it's just a little flicker, instead of full on, like all the way down the pathway protection mode, it's gonna help me choose an owl brain skill, right, but also if I have the skill or the capacity to tolerate the sensations of not getting what I want, if I have the tolerance for frustration or the tolerance for disappointment, I'm going to be able to notice that I'm frustrated or disappointed that I don't get what I want, and I'm going to be able to be okay for a few moments with that feeling, without it escalating now, without enough capacity for either of these, right, the owl brain flies away, and the behavior that is, you know, intended to get what's wanted becomes a quote unquote problematic behavior, right? I mean, exercising frustration tolerance or using problem-solving skills aren't identified as problematic behaviors. Those are still behaviors that are happening in response to not getting what I want, runaway, running away, screaming, grabbing, shutting down, yelling, manipulating. Those things are, of course, going to be flagged as problematic behaviors, and they should be. I'm not suggesting that they shouldn't be, but what I am saying is we've got to get really curious about why some kids can problem solve or regulate through those negative feelings, and some kids can't. 

Robyn: We're not about trying to eliminate protection mode. It's not that some kids don't have a moment of protection mode when they don't get what they want. It's that some kids can problem solve or regulate through it, and some kids can't. And we want to focus on those two things. We want to focus on helping that child tolerate the frustration enough to stay in their owl brain, so that they can problem solve or be okay with the yucky feeling that happens when they don't get what they want, and y'all, I have bad feelings when I don't get what I want to, and sometimes I'm great at regulating through it, or problem solving through it, and sometimes I'm not. So, attention seeking, escaping, accessing things you want, those aren't the problem, right? They're universal needs, right, need for connection, need for relief, right, desiring something. Those are universal needs, and we definitely can't consider that we're going to eliminate those needs. What we can think about is what are the missing skills that are leading to this behavior that's getting flagged for the functional behavior analysis, and when I say skill, that might be some developmental capacity, right? So, for example, attention seeking, right, it is about being a. Maybe to hold connection in mind without it being constantly connected to someone. All right, this is built through repeated experiences of connection being reliable.

Robyn: All right, this isn't an innate thing that kids are born with, and some kids are kind of what I would just call sort of like developmentally delayed in their ability to kind of hold in their body what it feels like to be getting connection from someone, even if they're not in that moment getting overt connection from someone else, and they're also able to hold in their body that even if I'm not getting connection right now, I'll get it later, and I'll be okay until I do. Okay, those are skills, and they are not something we're born with, or something that is taught. They are kind of experienced through, they are developed through experience, escape, or avoidance, right? That's about, like, I don't want to do this, I don't like this, right? Those kids need support with, like, negotiation, asking in other ways to get, you know, their needs or their wants met, and also tolerating how bad it feels when they don't get what they want, right? Those are two really important skills. Same thing with like access to tangibles, access to the thing we want. We also need words to ask, trust that our needs will get met, and the ability to tolerate when somebody says no. Now the sensory category, right? Well, we're not going to build a skill for that one, that's a physiological need. When there's a sensory need, the individual needs to do something to meet their sensory need. What we certainly can do is try to help kids get their sensory needs met in ways that aren't hurting them or aren't hurting other people. Okay, so we can certainly support that need there, so all of these functions they map to a real valid need, and to what I would call like a buildable skill, right, not focusing only on getting that to behavior to stop, but to really look at what does this child need in order to have a stress response that matches the stressor, what does the child need to develop the skills to ask for what they want and tolerate not being able to get it whenever they want it? 

Robyn: Essentially, a question kind of like that, right? Okay, so if we don't do an FBA, what is something we can do instead? Well, the first thing that needs to happen is the parent, the caregiver, the grown-up, right, is to notice and kind of label this behavior as a behavior that's emerging from protection mode, and it might be manipulative, it might be lying, it might be stealing, it might like those labels might be accurate. We just need to go another step further and say, and that's a behavior that's coming from protection mode, then if protection mode feels like it doesn't really match the child's current objective reality, like for example, you're out of your favorite cereal and your kid chucks the cereal bowl at your head, right, that's an attack watchdog behavior that is a big stress response to what wasn't technically threatening their physical safety. Okay, so we could call that a mismatch. All behavior makes sense in their nervous system, and that is clearly a sensitized stress response. So then we can get curious, is this a watchdog or a possum behavior? Well, when you're chucking someone at someone that's a watchdog behavior, what level? Well, physically trying to hurt somebody else tends to be attack level. And then it's what does this child need in order to tolerate the disappointment of not getting what they want? Do they need increased frustration tolerance? Do they need more capacity to tolerate negative affect? Do they need help believing that if something disappointing is happening right now, that something good could still happen later? Do they need help believing that adults will help problem-solve with them? There's all sorts of possibilities here. I did a previous episode not that long ago on kind of troubleshooting, and there is a troubleshooting worksheet available over in the club, so if you're listening and you're a club member, you can find that troubleshooting worksheet in our resource library. Y'all, we also did this a little bit in the Map Your Child's Nervous System workshop that we had in the club, so again, if you're a club member, you can watch that recording.

Robyn: Thing you can grab the work that the handouts that went along with that, if you're not a club member, you can join the club, and you can access all of those things as well, and really start to look at what are the what are the skills my child would need in order to manage this stress in a way that isn't hurting them or someone else, and sometimes you know, over in the club, we just like really, really break this all down, right? Like, I've answered questions and really broken down, like, a bullet points, like, what does this child need? Now, we can't work on all of those skills all at once, but we can look at, you know, all of the skills that are needed and decide, well, like, what's our lowest hanging fruit? What skills can we work on first, and then we can continue to build on those skills over time, so that we aren't staying focused on this kid has a behavior when they don't get what they want. We can stay focused on, well, all of us don't like not getting what we want, and some of us manage that better. Why and how can I help support my child in developing those same skills? So I hope that makes sense now. If you're listening as a professional, here's something I just want to say really explicitly. Over in the immersion program, I teach students not to disregard the behavior's function, so for example, if a parent describes their child's behavior as manipulative, I'm not going to say that's not manipulation; it's a stress response. I'm going to say something like, yeah, that behavior is manipulative, and being manipulated feels terrible. No wonder you want this behavior to stop. 

Robyn: Sure, manipulation is helping your child get what they want, but also the reality is we all want what we want. And why do some folks navigate that problem with more pro-social behaviors than others do? Right, so we can be clear that, like, yeah, the manipulation is helping your child get what they want, but why is that? How are they solving this problem? What's really going on, and how can we support that? The four functions, right, and, quote, unquote, it started in the nervous system, aren't in conflict, one isn't replacing the other, it's just so we gotta go deeper, and for sensitized nervous systems, for the folks you know listening to this podcast, and for the professionals out there working with kids who have behaviors that we would call big and baffling, we have to do that. It's not that the function is necessarily wrong, although it might be, you know, so don't hear me say that we're always right about that, but also it's not that that's necessarily wrong, it's just that we got to dig deeper, right? I think we got to be honest that, generally speaking behaviors that are labeled with one of those four functions of behavior. Those behaviors are emerging from a nervous system in protection mode. I mean, generally speaking, we don't do FBAs on behaviors that emerge from connection mode, because we aren't trying to change those. So, y'all, good behavior, bad behavior, attention-seeking behavior, avoidant behavior - all of that starts as a neural impulse in the nervous system. The question becomes whether we're going to stop with the label of attention-seeking or avoidant. Are we going to stop there, or are we going to go to where that behavior actually started in the first place, and for kids with big, baffling behaviors, sensitized stress response systems, that's not just going to be the most accurate place to look, it's probably going to be the only place that actually changes anything, because you've already tried all the other things, okay. So, the question of, do all behaviors start as a stress response, or do some of them, you know, are some of them categorized by these four functions of behavior? That question is contradicting itself, but, of course, not all behaviors start from a stress response, but generally speaking, the behaviors that we are going to do an FBA with are starting from a stress response.

Robyn: Okay, that doesn't mean they don't have that function, but they are starting from a stress response, and if we've gotten this far with each other, you know, y'all, we're almost 300 episodes into this podcast, when I'm working with families that have finally found their way to me, we have already tried to address the behavior on the outside, we have to turn our attention to what's happening on the inside and address that, and yes, a behavior that's one that we would be looking at with an FBA almost certainly started from a stress response, and if it didn't, then what we actually probably need to do is ask ourselves, why is this behavior a problem? Because generally speaking, behaviors that don't emerge from a stress response aren't typically a problem or something that we are working really hard to change. Okay, this was a dense podcast. I don't always put this much research into an episode or this much kind of background into an episode, so I know that this was a really dense one, don't forget you can get transcripts over on my website, so if it's helpful for you to like print something out or read something or return back, you know, return back to something in that way. All you got to do is go to this episode over on my website, and you can find that down in the show notes. Remember, y'all, I have oodles and oodles of resources for you over on my website, and my website is getting a major makeover. The free resources I offer are now stored more, they're stored in a way that are easier for you to obtain and use. The podcast search just leveled up and got easier. There's so much over on my website that can provide you with free instant support for the questions that you're asking, and if you need more support than what's available over on my website for free, you can grab yourself a copy of Raising Kids with Big Baffling Behaviors. You can consider joining us over at In the Club the next time it opens. You can find all of that, y'all, over at RobynGobbel.com. I'll be back with you again next week for another episode of The Baffling Behavior Show.