Description of Behavioral Assessment

  As with other forms of psychological assessment, behavioral assessment involves the systematic evaluation of behavior, including motor, cognitive, verbal, and psychophysiological responses. Behavioral assessment grew out of early work in classical and operant conditioning, although it was not commonly used until after the publication of several seminal articles in the 1960s and 1970s, well after behavior therapy had been established (Ollendick, Alvarez, & Greene, 2004). Just as behavioral treatments have become more diverse over time (see Chapter 2), so have the range of assessment techniques used by behavior therapists. Contemporary behavioral assessment still includes traditional methods of assessing behavior, such as behavioral observation, self-monitoring, and functional analysis, but other methods are increasingly being used as well, including self-report scales, cognitive measures, and diagnostic interviews, all of which would not likely have been included in a standard behavioral assessment several decades ago.

Contemporary behavioral assessment has a number of goals, including developing a better understanding of a client’s problems (from a behavioral perspective); describing the presence, absence, or severity of particular symptoms; making inferences about the causes of a client’s problems (especially environmental influences); predicting future behavior; developing appropriate treatments; and measuring treatment outcome. In the remainder of this section, we highlight some of the most important features of behavioral assessment, with an emphasis on how behavioral assessment differs from other forms of assessment. Detailed reviews of behavioral assessment may be found elsewhere (e.g., Haynes & Heiby, 2004).

Functionalism and Behavioral Assessment

  Behavioral assessment emphasizes a functional approach to understanding behavior. In other words, a goal of behavioral assessment is to specify the function or purpose of clients’ behaviors (i.e., why people behave the way they do). In practice, this process includes identifying factors that maintain behavior, including environmental triggers, contexts in which behavior occurs, and ways in which behaviors are reinforced or punished by the client’s environment. Despite the emphasis on function, behavioral assessment often includes measurement of the structure or form of behavior as well, such as the frequency and severity of specific symptoms and behaviors. Measuring the form that behaviors take is important for assessing the outcome of behavioral treatment because the goal of treatment is often to change the frequency or severity of particular symptoms or behaviors.

Hypothesized Causes of Behavior

  In behavioral assessment, causes of behavior are assumed to be based in the client’s environment or to stem from interactions among various biological and environmental factors. As such, behavior is expected to vary considerably over time and across situations, as a function of environmental contingencies. For example, a child might scream and cry around a parent who is quick to give in to the child’s tantrums but not with another parent who routinely ignores these behaviors. In contrast to behavioral assessment, traditional personality assessment views behavior as stemming from enduring personality traits that are somewhat consistent across time and context. Although some variability across situations might be expected in traditional assessment, the importance of such variability is often minimized, whereas in behavioral assessment the variability in behavior across situations is of primary interest.