This is a practical book that presents evidenced-based methods for addressing challenging behaviour in children and adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities. It offers a person-centred approach to analysing and addressing challenging behaviour in an engaging and jargon-free style.

This highly practical book is an accessible and grounded handbook for addressing challenging behaviour in children and adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities (IDD), including autism. It recognises that challenging behaviour does not appear out of nowhere and is meaningful for the person exhibiting it. Behaviour can be communicative and an important signifier of underlying sensory or environmental issues. Focusing on a person-centred approach throughout, the book has advice and strategies for working with the client's families, support staff and professionals. It also presents best practice for analysing and addressing challenging behaviour in various settings such as schools, hospitals and the home, all while stressing the need to keep the human story at the heart of any assessment and intervention. Each chapter features questions for discussion or reflection and exercises for the reader to complete. Informal, frank and free of jargon, this is indispensable for professionals, parents, and anyone working with people with intellectual disability or autism.

Practice Leadership refers to individuals who have direct front-line responsibility for leading the practice of staff on a day-to-day basis, such as operational leaders and managers in services for people with autism and intellectual disabilities. A good practice leader creates cultures and puts values into action. They deliver great support. A practice leader implements our best endeavours. A good leader makes all the difference. This book lays out the steps to achieving great practice leadership in services for people with autism and intellectual disabilities, such as care homes or supported living. It explains how practice leadership delivers support and care using the principles of Positive Behaviour Support (PBS). The book outlines what practice leadership should look like in context, how to do it and why it matters. It draws from real-life case studies throughout and each section encourages discussion and reflection. Refreshingly warm, humorous and jargon free, this is an indispensable guide for professionals in services working with people with intellectual disability or autism at any level.

Approximately 2.5 million people in the United States--one percent of the population--have an intellectual disability (previously referred to as mental retardation). These conditions range from genetic disorders such as Down syndrome to disabilities caused by infectious diseases and brain injury. Intellectual Disability: A Guide for Families and Professionals, by one of the country's foremost authorities on intellectual disability, is a comprehensive resource that will be of importance to anyone with a personal connection to a child or adult with a neurodevelopmental disorder. Emphasizing the humanity of persons with intellectual and related developmental disabilities, psychiatrist and pediatrician James Harris provides essential information on assessment and diagnosis of intellectual disability, treatments for specific disorders, and ways to take advantage of the wide array of services available today. The focus throughout is on the development of the person, the positive supports necessary for self-determination, and, to the extent possible, independent decision making. Harris also surveys historical attitudes toward intellectual disability, the medical community's current understanding of its causes and frequency, and the associated physical, behavioral, and psychiatric conditions (such as seizure disorder, depression, and autism) that often accompany particular types of intellectual disability. The book addresses legal, medical, mental health, and research-related issues as well as matters of spirituality, highlighting the ways in which individuals with intellectual disability can meaningfully participate in the spiritual lives of their families and their communities. Each chapter ends with a series of key points to remember, and the book concludes with a list of additional resources of further interest. Intellectual Disability is a must-read for parents and families of those with neurodevelopmental disorders, providing guidance and essential information to help their family members effectively, and to make a significant, positive difference in their lives now and in the future.

This strategy-packed resource offers innovative intervention techniques and explores the planning and assistance needed to fully include individuals with challenging behavior at home, at school, and in the community.

Challenging Behaviour and People with Intellectual Disabilities (second edition) addresses the need for an up-to-date handbook which, while well-grounded in research and latest clinical practice, is essentially non-academic and accessible for staff occupying many roles, for example, support workers and managers in learning disability service settings, community learning disability teams, psychologists, psychiatrists and other professionals who may find themselves supporting a person with an intellectual disability from time to time, as well as family members and students of both mental health and intellectual disability. The new edition is a complete revision and updating of content, aiming to address key knowledge requirements and concerns of people working in the field, with opportunities for reflection and professional development. The content is illustrated by case studies to help the reader explore how to best to address issues in practice.

This book, prepared in response to a request from the United States Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs, reviews the published literature on positive behavior interventions and uses this database to provide four main content areas for research. Positive behavior support (PBS) is defined as an approach for dealing with problem behavior that focuses on the remediation of deficient contexts (such as environmental conditions and/or behavioral repertoires) that by functional assessment are documented to be the source of the problem. The research published on PBS between 1985 and 1996 (n=107 articles) was reviewed with respect to four categories of variables: demographics, assessment practices, intervention strategies, and outcomes. Results indicated that: (1) PBS is widely applicable to people with serious problem behavior; (2) the field is growing rapidly overall, but especially in the use of assessment and in interventions that focus on correcting environmental deficiencies; (3) using stringent criteria of success, PBS is effective in reducing problem behavior in one-half to two-thirds of cases; (4) success rates nearly double when intervention is based on a prior functional assessment; and (5) consumer needs that emphasize comprehensive lifestyle support, long-term change, practicality and relevance, and direct support for consumers themselves are inadequately addressed by the research base. Recommendations are made for bridging the research-to-practice gap. (Contains more than 300 references.) (Author/CR)