Background: The STOMP agenda (Stopping Over-Medication of People with learning disabilities, autism, or both) drew focus to individuals with a diagnosis of a learning disability being prescribed psychotropic medication to manage 'behaviours that challenge'. The following study is an audit of two community learning disability services in the London…

Background: Mindfulness-informed interventions are increasingly being offered to individuals with learning disabilities. The current paper aims to reflect on the provision and effectiveness of a group intervention incorporating mindfulness-informed techniques and relaxation strategies. Method: Nine group attendees with mild learning disabilities…

Introduction: Adults with complex needs and severe learning disability present as a serious management problem within the community. Restrictive interventions are often used to manage adults with these issues, even though best practice recommends the use of positive behaviour support. Positive behaviour support involves functional analysis, but it…

Background: There is relatively little published data that report the experiences and views of family carers of people with intellectual disabilities who display challenging behaviour who are prescribed psychotropic medication. Materials and methods: An online structured questionnaire was created by the Challenging Behaviour Foundation, a UK…

Background: Following scandals such as Winterbourne view, Department of Health, (A national response to Winterbourne View Hospital, 2012) seeks changes in challenging behaviour services. A key part of this change is ensuring people with learning disabilities who use challenging behaviour services have more personalised support and their voices are…

Seven per cent of individuals with learning disabilities also display challenging behaviour ("Challenging behaviour: analysis and intervention in people with severe intellectual disabilities," 2001, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press), which has an effect on the whole family. Services need to be developed to support and reflect this…

This paper outlines a programme "Safe and Social" that has been implemented with adults with intellectual disability across multiple contexts in a service based in Ireland. The emphasis within the programme is on providing service users and staff with a framework and the necessary language to discuss social behaviours and boundaries,…

People with learning disabilities are sometimes prescribed psychotropic medication to help manage their challenging behaviour. This case study describes how a multicomponent behavioural intervention in conjunction with the systematic withdrawal of sodium valproate was strongly correlated with reduced aggression. No symptoms of bipolar disorder or…

The development of restrictive physical interventions (RPI) to manage challenging behaviours based upon control and restraint during the 1980s and 1990s led to widespread professional disquiet and campaigning to improve the policies, training and application of physical techniques. This included the promotion of a value base within which physical…

Children and young people with learning disabilities who present sexually harmful behaviour are marginalised and do not always participate in community activities. This case study describes a multi-component intervention that successfully reduced the sexually harmful behaviour of a 16-year-old boy with a mild learning disability. The intervention…

The background to an exciting and probably unique initiative for people with challenging behaviour is described. The Special Projects Team (SPT) was established in the context of increasing knowledge of effective treatment responses, but lack of widespread expertise as well as growing crisis within challenging behaviour services. Unlike previous…

It is argued that challenging behavior can be better understood if a correlational analysis (looking for correlations between behavior occurrence and other variables) is used in addition to functional analysis. A case example is provided of a man whose aggressive outbursts were negatively correlated with trips out of his unit. (Contains…