Challenging Behaviors In Children Research Articles

Severe sleep disturbance and daytime challenging behaviour in children with severe learning disabilities

Severe sleep disturbance and daytime challenging behaviour in children with severe learning disabilities

Severe sleep disturbance and daytime challenging behaviour in children with severe learning disabilities.

Sleep problems are common in children with severe learning difficulties. Children with sleep problems are reported to have more behaviour problems, but daytime challenging behaviour has not been examined specifically. The current study was concerned with associations between sleep problems and challenging behaviour, as well as describing other clinical features of the childrens' sleep, as reported by parents. All children in the series showed some form of sleep disturbance, with settling problems, night waking and early waking in 44% of the sample. Children with sleep problems showed significantly more types of challenging behaviour and challenging behaviour of a greater severity than children without sleep problems, resulting in management difficulties for carers throughout the 24-h period. Reasons for this association and suggestions for intervention are discussed.

Planned Activities Training for mothers of children with developmental disabilities. Community generalization and follow-up.

Planned Activities Training (PAT) teaches mothers to plan and structure activities to prevent challenging child behaviors. PAT was evaluated with four mothers of children with developmental disabilities, including autism, Down Syndrome, and ADHD. PAT was used independent of any other behavior management techniques to examine its impact on mother and child behaviors, which were examined in addition to "fidelity" data on the mothers' implementation of PAT techniques. A multiple probe experimental design across two families with a replication across two more families demonstrated that PAT produced marked improvements in mother and child behavior in three generalization settings. In most cases, mothers' use of PAT procedures more than doubled. Three mothers' appropriate behavior increased from 25% to 40%. Improvements in child behavior ranged from 20% to more than 50%. Intervention gains were maintained at 1, 3, and 6 months. These results suggest that PAT is a useful technique for promoting durable generalization of mother child skills.

Problems of recruiting participants for nursing research: a case study

There is a well established theoretical base for many of the methodological aspects of nursing research1,2,3. Researchers have explored measurement tools, design of studies, methods of data collection and analysis, but the question of recruitment of participants to a research project remains a neglected area despite the profound influence it can have on the success or failure of that project. A research project into the management of challenging behaviour in children with learning disabilities (being conducted at Hull University) provides a case study as a means of exploring and illustrating the potential problems of recruitment. This paper then identifies general guidelines that researchers can adopt for effective recruitment strategies. The conclusions drawn emphasise that recruitment is an important element of the research process and deserves careful attention in the initial planning phases of a study to ensure its completion.

Functional Assessment and Treatment of Challenging Behavior

Considerable research has focused on challenging behaviors (e.g., aggressive/disruptive, self-injurious) in children and adults with developmental disabilities over the past 25 years. Numerous behavioral interventions have been evaluated with results showing varied degrees of success. Recently, researchers have begun developing functional assessment methods to analyze contingencies maintaining challenging behaviors. This has led to the development and evaluation of functional interventions. In this article the literature on functional assessment and treatment of challenging behavior in children with developmental disabilities is reviewed. Following a review of the studies evaluating functional assessment and treatment approaches, we discuss the implications for early childhood and issues for future research in this area.