Just my experience but FBAs that work primarily with children with autism seem to see autism in everything, FBAs that work primarily with children with adhd see adhd in everything, and on and on...My child's disabilities and gifts are more complicated for that type of person, jmo. I prefer to get someone I have chosen and that I have looked at the qualifications and I have interviewed and that I feel confident in to analyze my child.
Huh? An FBA is not a person, it is a process. It can be performed by anyone with appropriate training - could be a school counselor, a behaviorist, I suppose even a teacher if she has training in analyzing behavior. It is
not a diagnosis. It is an analysis of the "function" of behaviors. As I said earlier, I don't really like this language, because I think it puts the onus on the child in an inappropriate way. But this reaction sounds sort of over-the-top. You can certainly dispute the FBA after it is written, and ask for another opinion, but I'm not sure you can force the school to pay for your own personally-selected professional in the first go-around instead of using the qualified people that they have in-house.
I refer to the people that do FBA as Functional Behavioral Assessors (FBAs for short) - just my shorthand... but I realize it is an assessment done by behaviorists (well at our school it is done by "behaviorists") and I do not care for their philosophy --- that's just me, but I am entitled to my opinion ...
I never said anything or encouraged anyone to do this:
"force the school to pay for your own personally-selected professional in the first go-around instead of using the qualified people that they have in-house."
Simply, I, personally, would rather pay my own professionals (analysts, psychologists, neuropsychologists, whatever) that
I research and choose and with whom
I am comfortable. Period. I would at this point advise the same about psycho-educational evals ... Sure you can get them done by the school for free but often they are not comprehensive enough, the school psych may be good or not (it's not like you have a choice), the school tends to have it's own agenda, etc....Yes, you can get a school eval, then disagree and ask for an IEE but that process takes soooo long! (have you tried it? It is a nightmare in our district and takes over 6 months while the child suffers). And all of that info from the first eval, whether it is erroneous or misleading or valid or not is on the record and follows your kid, etc etc etc. My advice - pay for your own eval ... Then you can decide what to do and where to go and what to share from there.
As for this:
"You can certainly dispute the FBA after it is written, and ask for another opinion"
I don't know about anyone else ... but I have enough fights on my hands I don't need to add something else I disagree with to the table. Once the schools have erroneous information it gets passed on and on and on - you are never free of it. Again, sorry you think it is over the top but I have had bad experiences...
ETA: I actually don't even have to worry about it... I got clarification that they are not asking to do and are not interested in doing an FBA on my child, thank goodness.
