Amanda is a 14-year-old regular education student in the eighth grade. She lives with her biological father and stepmother. There are no other children in the home. The chief concern is that Amanda often visits the school nurse's office with complaints of headache and nausea. The typical course of action is to provide her with ibuprofen and, if this fails to resolve her complaints, her parents are called to take her home or to her physician. These events occur about 10 percent of school days and always during the afternoon. Her symptoms and their rate of occurrence have remained unchanged for several weeks. Her parents, who are quite concerned about her health, have scheduled an evaluation by a pediatric neurologist.

Post your response to the following:

• What hypotheses do you have about the function of Amanda's behavior?
• How might you test these hypotheses?