Behavioral Assessment

Abstract

Behavioral assessment is a psychological assessment paradigm composed of an integrated set of science-based concepts about behavior problems, the variables that influence them, and a diverse set of empirically supported assessment methods consistent with those concepts. The goals of the paradigm are to develop and apply the most valid and useful assessment strategies for understanding persons with behavior problems, planning interventions to improve their quality of life, and monitoring the effects of those interventions. The main features of behavioral assessment are its emphasis on scientific methods, multisource assessment, the conditional nature of behavior problems, direct observation, assessment in the client's natural environment, time-series measurement strategies, specific behaviors and events, functional relations contiguous to behavior problems, an idiographic approach to clinical assessment, multivariate causality, dynamic aspects of behavior and functional relations, and the integration of assessment data into a functional analysis or other form of clinical case formulation.