Challenging behaviour, also known as behaviours which challenge, is defined as "culturally abnormal

behaviour Behavior (American English) or behaviour (British English) is the range of actions and mannerisms made by individuals, organisms, systems or artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or organisms as wel ...

(s) of such intensity, frequency or duration that the physical

safety Safety is the state of being "safe", the condition of being protected from harm or other danger. Safety can also refer to the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk. Meanings There are two slightly di ...

of the person or others is placed in serious jeopardy, or behaviour which is likely to seriously limit or deny access to the use of ordinary community facilities". "Ordinarily we would expect the person to have shown the pattern of behaviour that presents such a challenge to services for a considerable period of time. Severely challenging behaviour is not a transient phenomenon." Challenging behaviour is most often, though not exclusively exhibited by individuals with learning

developmental disabilities Developmental disability is a diverse group of chronic conditions, comprising mental or physical impairments that arise before adulthood. Developmental disabilities cause individuals living with them many difficulties in certain areas of life, espe ...

, individuals with

dementia Dementia is a disorder which manifests as a set of related symptoms, which usually surfaces when the brain is damaged by injury or disease. The symptoms involve progressive impairments in memory, thinking, and behavior, which negatively affe ...

or other mental health needs, such as

stroke A stroke is a disease, medical condition in which poor cerebral circulation, blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: brain ischemia, ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and intracranial hemorrhage, hemorr ...

s or

acquired brain injuries Acquired brain injury (ABI) is brain damage caused by events after birth, rather than as part of a genetic or congenital disorder such as fetal alcohol syndrome, perinatal illness or perinatal hypoxia. ABI can result in cognitive, physical, em ...

, individuals with

psychosis Psychosis is a condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real. Symptoms may include delusions and hallucinations, among other features. Additional symptoms are incoherent speech and behavi ...

and by

children A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger ...

, although such behaviours can be displayed by any person.

Types

Common types of challenging behaviour include

self-injurious behaviour Self-harm is intentional behavior that is considered harmful to oneself. This is most commonly regarded as direct injury of one's own skin tissues usually without a suicidal intention. Other terms such as cutting, self-injury and self-mutilatio ...

(such as hitting, headbutting, biting, scratching),

aggressive behaviour Aggression is overt or covert, often harmful, social interaction with the intention of inflicting damage or other harm upon another individual; although it can be channeled into creative and practical outlets for some. It may occur either reacti ...

(such as hitting others, headbutting, shouting, swearing, screaming, scratching others, spitting, biting, punching, hair pulling, kicking), inappropriate sexualised behaviour (such as public masturbation or groping), behaviour directed at

property Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, r ...

(such as throwing objects and stealing) and stereotyped behaviours (such as repetitive rocking or

echolalia Echolalia is the unsolicited repetition of vocalizations made by another person (when repeated by the same person, it is called palilalia). In its profound form it is automatic and effortless. It is one of the echophenomena, closely related t ...

Misuse

The term "challenging behaviour" has become subject to widespread misuse, most often as a

euphemism A euphemism () is an innocuous word or expression used in place of one that is deemed offensive or suggests something unpleasant. Some euphemisms are intended to amuse, while others use bland, inoffensive terms for concepts that the user wishes ...

for violent or aggressive behaviour. In educational settings it is often used to refer to acts of disobedience, defiance, or other non-compliance with authority. This is not what the term was originally intended to refer to. Increasingly professional groups are adopting alternative terms for example "behaviour of concern".

Causes

Challenging behaviour may be caused by many kinds of factors, including: *biological (pain, medication, the need for

sensory stimulation In physiology, a stimulus is a detectable change in the physical or chemical structure of an organism's internal or external environment. The ability of an organism or organ to detect external stimuli, so that an appropriate reaction can be ...

) *social (boredom, seeking social interaction, the need for an element of control, lack of knowledge of community norms, insensitivity of staff and services to the person's wishes and needs) *environmental (physical aspects such as noise and lighting, or gaining access to preferred objects or activities) *psychological (feeling excluded, lonely, devalued, labelled, disempowered, living up to people's negative expectations) Challenging behaviour may also simply be a means of

communication Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inqui ...

. A lot of the time, challenging behaviour is learned and brings rewards and it is very often possible to teach people new behaviours to achieve the same aims. Behaviour analysts have focused on a developmental model of challenging behaviour. Experience and research suggests that what professionals call "challenging behaviour" is often a reaction to the challenging environments that services or others create around people with developmental disabilities, and a method of communicating dissatisfaction with the failure of services or others to listen for what kind of life makes most sense to the person, especially where services or others create lifestyles and relationships that are centred on what suits them or the service and its staff rather than what suits the person. Challenging behaviour can often be viewed as a ‘behavioural equivalent’ of a mental health problem. However, research evidence indicates that challenging behaviours and mental health problems are relatively independent conditions. A common principle in

behaviour management Behavior management, similar to behavior modification, is a less-intensive form of behavior therapy. Unlike behavior modification, which focuses on changing behavior, behavior management focuses on maintaining positive habits and behaviors and red ...

is looking for the message an individual is communicating through their challenging behaviour: "All behaviour has meaning". This is a core in the

functional analysis Functional analysis is a branch of mathematical analysis, the core of which is formed by the study of vector spaces endowed with some kind of limit-related structure (e.g. inner product, norm, topology, etc.) and the linear functions defi ...

process. Children communicate through their behaviour, especially those who have not acquired language and vocabulary skills to tell the adult what the problem is. In adults with developmental disabilities certain types of challenging behaviour can predict contact with police and hospital admission.

Behaviour response cycle

Challenging behaviours may be viewed as occurring in a cycle: * Trigger * Escalation * Crisis * Recovery Analysis of this cycle provides a foundation for using a variety of strategies to minimise the triggers of challenging behaviour, teach more appropriate behaviours in response to these triggers, or provide consequences to the challenging behaviour that will encourage a more appropriate response. Behavioural strategies such as

Applied Behaviour Analysis Applied behavior analysis (ABA), also called behavioral engineering, is a psychological intervention that applies empirical approaches based upon the principles of respondent and operant conditioning to change behavior of social significance.S ...

operant conditioning Operant conditioning, also called instrumental conditioning, is a learning process where behaviors are modified through the association of stimuli with reinforcement or punishment. In it, operants—behaviors that affect one's environment—are c ...

and

positive behaviour support Positive behavior support (PBS) uses a combination of tools from Applied behaviour Analysis and combines it with the values from the 'normalisation and social role valorisation theory' to focus on improving Quality of life. PBS uses functional an ...

use similar approaches to analysing and responding to challenging behaviours. Recently, Eidetic Model of Growth (EMG) has been used with promising results.

Notes

External links