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Indirect assessment uses interviews or questionnaires to gather information from those who know the individual’s behavior, such as parents, teachers, or the person themselves, about what happens before and after the behavior. This approach relies on reported events rather than observing the behavior in real time, so it’s great for quickly forming hypotheses about what triggers the behavior and what maintains it.

Direct assessment, by contrast, involves watching and recording the behavior as it occurs, capturing the actual moments of occurrence. Descriptive assessment also involves naturalistic observation to document behavior and the surrounding antecedents and consequences as they happen, but through direct observation rather than reports. Functional assessment is the broader process of identifying the function of the behavior and can use indirect or direct methods to determine why the behavior occurs.