Question about choosing the best assessment protocol for a client.

Disclaimer: This is NOT a “help me do my homework” question.

The question: Is it true that any client that engages in any type of negative behavior, no matter how intense or frequent, must be assessed using the VB-MAPP?

Some background: I’m in an ABA graduate program and I recently finished a group project that had us create a fictional client, compare and contrast two assessment protocols (PEAK, VB-MAPP, ABLLS-R, etc.), then determine based on our research what assessment would be the best fit for the fake client. My group lost all of the points that were marked off because we chose the wrong assessment.

When my group member emailed the professor for clarification, they said that any client that displays any negative behaviors, no matter how minor, should be assessed using the VB-MAPP. I’m not sure if they were referencing the Barriers Assessment, but even so, I was under the impression that it doesn’t provide any extra information regarding interventions for the negative behaviors.

I have experience with both VB-MAPP and ABLLS-R and I had never heard of this before. I’ve also worked with clients who engaged in negative behaviors who were on either assessment and all of them had BIPs in place using interventions guided by relevant research, not the assessment itself.