Challenging Behaviour

Understanding Challenging Behaviour

Why does it happen?

Most children without learning disabilities display lots of challenging behaviour during the “terrible twos,” but usually this doesn’t last because most 2-year olds develop a range of communication and social skills which enable them to get what they want and need more easily. Many children with learning disabilities do not develop these skills and are left with the same needs as other children their age but are much less able to get them met.

Many cases of challenging behaviour appear to be effective ways for a person with learning disability to control what is going on around them.

What can be done?

There is no magic cure for challenging behaviour but there is a great deal that can be done to prevent or reduce the frequency of challenging behaviour.

Medical causes need to be ruled out, for example, the person may be banging their head due to an ear infection but have no way to communicate this.

What can be done?

Try to check things out for yourself. If you change something does that stop the behaviour? Can you teach the child to tell you what they want in another way?

When safe to do so ignore the behaviour. If it’s not safe respond as calmly and blandly as possible to prevent the person from hurting themselves further.

Develop the person’s communication skills and give them choice and independence.

What can be done?

If the person is displaying serious challenging behaviour ask for a “functional assessment” to try and understand the reasons behind the behaviour. You can ask your GP or social worker for a referral.

Challenging behaviour can be an emotional experience for parents - you may feel very angry with the child or very depressed about their behaviour. Don’t be ashamed of this! Instead, talk about it with anyone who will listen and understand.

Support with challenging behaviour

Every individual regardless of where they live should have: access to healthcare: it is important to treat any medical

conditions the person has, which may cause challenging behaviour or make it worse

access to assessment and support to ensure their behaviour is properly understood and supported

an advocate who knows how the system works and can help access support.

Families should be able to access a range of support and services to meet the needs of their family. Support should be flexible and personalised to meet individual need.

What does good support look like?

It’s based on good relationships and genuine partnership between people with behaviour described as challenging, their family members, and professional staff who are willing to try new ways of working. It meets the needs of individuals and families and enables families of people with severe learning disabilities and challenging behaviour to live as ‘ordinary’ a life as possible.

Improved live style options

Long term Enduring Trans-disciplinary audit Forward thinking Capacity assessment

Areas of improvement

Diet Health Leisure Self-advocacy Sensory support Skills and knowledge

Conclusion This unit has been developed as an introduction to

themes and issues relating to challenging behaviour. We have considered the nature of our relationships with the deaf blind people we serve and the amount of control that we can have over other people’s lives. We have also considered our own feelings as practitioners and how this can affect our work with deaf blind people.

Conclusion We have also thought about strategies for

supporting people whose behaviour is difficult to understand. The importance of proactive, educational strategies has been highlighted – if the person’s behaviour is a problem it is because there is a need. The challenge we face is to try and understand the problem and offer ways for the need to be met. This may be about offering more security, more freedom, better communication, teaching new skills, attending to health care issues … and so on.

Conclusion

This is a long process and sometimes things go wrong! This is why we also need to have reactive strategies – a means of calming things down and resolving crises so that we can go back to our job of supporting the development of new skills and understandings. We don’t learn well when we are upset and angry! We learn when we are relaxed and comfortable – when Sense service users are distressed our primary task is to offer comfort and reassurance – help them get back to relaxed and happier place so we can continue to learn, explore and understand each other.