Evidence map›Paper›PMID 36465598›Full record

ArticleBehavior analysis in practice2022

On the Reliability and Treatment Utility of the Practical Functional Assessment Process.

Adithyan Rajaraman, Gregory P Hanley, Holly C Gover, Kelsey W Ruppel, Robin K Landa

Open access · greenAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Behavior analysis in practice, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
10citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
4.9field-weighted citation impact, top 5% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 19 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Article
  3. Human-operant evaluation of synthesized alternative reinforcement and resurgence.Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior · 2026
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  8. A scoping review of consecutive controlled case series studies.Journal of applied behavior analysis · 2025
    Article
  9. Article
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Adithyan RajaramanDepartment of Psychology, Western New England University, Springfield, MA USA.ORCID 0000-0002-3671-8327
Gregory P HanleyDepartment of Psychology, Western New England University, Springfield, MA USA.
Holly C GoverDepartment of Psychology, Western New England University, Springfield, MA USA.
Kelsey W RuppelDepartment of Psychology, Western New England University, Springfield, MA USA.
Robin K LandaDepartment of Psychology, Western New England University, Springfield, MA USA.
Western New England University · US

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Saini et al. (2019) urged caution with respect to the use of practical functional assessment (PFA) procedures to inform behavioral treatment when they found that responses to an open-ended caregiver interview were only somewhat reliable and showed moderate to weak correspondence with analog functional analyses. Because the practitioner's goal in conducting any functional assessment process is to inform the successful treatment of problem behavior, we replicated and extended Saini et al. by (a) evaluating the reliability of hypotheses gleaned from two independent PFA processes for each of four children, (b) conducting treatment informed by a randomly assigned PFA, and (c) determining the extent to which potentially different levels of reliability impacted the treatment utility of the PFA process. Results indicated that the reliability of the PFA process varied depending on the stringency with which it was evaluated. However, treatments developed from randomly determined PFA processes produced efficacious outcomes on problem behavior and targeted social skills that transferred to the context designed from the other PFA process in all evaluations, suggesting that the PFA has strong treatment utility despite parts of the process having ambiguous levels of reliability. We discuss implications for practitioners tasked with treating severe problem behavior.

Indexed as

Open-ended indirect assessmentPractical functional assessment processReliabilitySevere problem behaviorSkill-based treatmentTreatment utility

Identifiers

PMID36465598
PMCPMC9582185
OpenAlexW4210834661

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.