Question

Vanessa frequently complains of getting terrible headaches and therefore ends up at the nurse's office several times a week. yet two different physicians have been unable to find a cause for vanessa's headaches, and vanessa's parents report that their daughter rarely has headaches at home. vanessa is falling further and further behind in her schoolwork, so vanessa's teacher and parents meet with the nurse and school psychologist to brainstorm possible solutions to vanessa's problem. the school psychologist suggests that the teacher keep track of the occasions when vanessa complains about a headache. two weeks later, the teacher reports that all of vanessa's complaints occur just before a test or difficult assignment. suddenly the teacher and parents begin to suspect that perhaps vanessa complains of headaches as a way of getting out of difficult schoolwork. here we see the initial steps in a process known as:

Answer 1

The scenario above illustrates the initial step in a process known as FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS. Functional analysis in behavioral psychology involves applying the law of operant  condition to establish the links between stimuli and responses. It is an assessment skill which guides case formulation.