A systematic literature review on functional assessment for young children with developmental delays and disabilities

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to systematically review and summarize the characteristics of peer-reviewed studies on functional assessments for supporting the challenging behaviors of young children with delays and disabilities. In addition to studies reported from 2000 to 2014 in a previously conducted review on functional assessment supporting challenging behaviors of individuals with developmental disabilities (Lee et al., 2015), we conducted systematic searches of electronic databases, authors, and citations to identify studies that meet the study inclusion criteria. A total of 28 studies were included in this review and were coded by the characteristics of the general study, child participants, and functional assessment. The results indicated the following discussion points: (1) the need for further investigation on various approaches for functional assessment in South Korea, (2) the inclusion of a broader range of children as participants in functional assessment studies, (3) the need for collecting and reporting data on a more detailed information about the functional assessment studies(e.g., duration of the functional assessment). Limitations of the current review and the implications for research and practice are included.