Function of Challenging Behaviors

Abstract

This chapter discusses assessing challenging behaviors by and developing interventions to reduce such behaviors by linking the intervention to the behavior's function. Challenging behaviors are highly likely among persons with general developmental disorders, autism, severe and profound intellectual disabilities, and multiple disabilities. The first consideration about challenging behaviors is that they have a definitely negative impact on the person's developmental and adaptive opportunities and on his or her context and therefore their occurrence needs to be reduced through appropriate intervention strategies. The second consideration is that challenging behaviors may have their emergence and continuous occurrence justified by the functions (consequences) that they have for the person. In other words, they may have an important role for the person (e.g., in terms of stimulation and reinforcement), irrespective of whether an external observer could attribute them an immediate/obvious meaning or not. The third consideration is that any attempt to intervene to reduce the occurrence of challenging behaviors should rely on (a) an understanding of the possible functions of such behaviors and (b) intervention strategies that are matched to those functions. These three considerations have over time become a widely agreed way of thinking and the common approach is that an assessment of the person's challenging behavior is a preliminary condition for the development of the intervention strategy. Assessment can occur in different ways. The three most common forms may involve the use of rating scales, observational descriptive strategies, and functional analysis procedures. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)