Background: The positive relationship between problem behaviours of children with additional complex needs and psychological distress in their caregivers has been widely evidenced. Fewer studies, however, have assessed the relationship between care recipients' problem behaviours and key physiological processes, relevant for the physical…

Background: The measurement of subjective well-being in people with severe and profound intellectual disabilities (ID) is a difficult challenge. As they cannot self-report about their life satisfaction, because of severe communicative and cognitive limitations, behavioural observations of their emotions and moods are important in the measurement…

Background: We investigated the relationship between low mood and challenging behaviour in people in the severe and profound range of intellectual disability, while controlling for the presence of potentially confounding variables such as diagnosis of autism, physical and sensory problems and ill health. Methods: The key workers of 52 people with…

Background: Existing research studies suggest that parenting a child with intellectual disabilities (ID) can be a stressful experience. However, there are few data addressing the question of how or why parents might experience considerable distress. In the present study, psychological variables (acceptance, mindfulness, avoidant coping) are…

Background: Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is a genetic syndrome associated with several physical, cognitive and behavioural characteristics. For many individuals with this syndrome, compulsive behaviour is often noted in both food and non-food situations. The focus of this paper is on the non-food-related compulsions in individuals with PWS and…

Background: Very little is known about the neuropsychological correlates of adaptive functioning in people with intellectual disabilities (ID). This study examined whether specific cognitive deficits and demographic variables predicted everyday functioning in adults with ID. Method: People with ID (n = 101; ages 19-41 years; mean education = 11…

Background: Studies of people with intellectual disability suggest that several individual characteristics and environmental factors are associated with behaviour disorder. To date there are few studies looking at risk factors within specific syndromes and the relationship between early risk markers and later behaviour disorder. The key aim of the…