First published in 1994. This book is a practical guide for those involved in the daily care, education and development of people with learning disabilities and additional behavioural and emotional disturbances. It will assist professional helpers in understanding the nature of an individual’s difficulties and in developing interventions aimed at alleviating them.
Entirely revised and updated, this edition of a very well-received and successful book provides the essentials for all those involved in the fields of intellectual, developmental and learning disabilities and mental retardation, drawing both on clinical experience and the latest research findings. An international, multidisciplinary team of experts cover the available literature in full and bring together the most relevant and useful information on mental health and behavioural problems of people with intellectual, developmental and learning disabilities and mental retardation. In addition, this book highlights the principles behind clinical practice for assessment, management and services. It offers hands-on, practical advice for psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, therapists, social workers, managers and service providers.
Problem behaviors often compound the already difficult task of improving the lives of persons with severe disabilities. This important volume, representing the culmination of more than a decade of clinical research, presents the first complete description of the procedures used in Functional Communication Training--a positive approach for reducing severe behavior problems. The procedures described in this book have been validated by numerous empirical studies for use with children, adolescents, and adults who display behaviors as diverse as aggression, self-injury, tantrums, and bizarre, psychotic speech. Functional Communication Training involves teaching students how to communicate those basic wants and needs that they have previously sought to have fulfilled via their problem behavior. They are taught to replace their challenging behavior with learned communication skills. This book provides the practitioner with step-by-step instructions for implementing this effective approach. A variety of assessment strategies are reviewed and described to assist in determining appropriate interventions. The Motivation Assessment Scale--one device designed to assess the function of problem behavior--is outlined in detail and is accompanied with guidelines for its administration and interpretation. Communication training is then detailed and illustrated using speech, sign language, and augmentative systems as examples. Numerous case examples throughout illuminate both the assessment and intervention strategies. Providing clear direction for ameliorating complex behavior problems, this book will be valued by psychologists, behavior analysts, special educators, and speech and language therapists. It can be used as a text for advanced undergraduate courses on behavior management in psychology and special education, and also serves as supplementary reading for courses on behavior modification or mental retardation/developmental disabilities.
Children living in poverty are more likely to have mental health problems, and their conditions are more likely to be severe. Of the approximately 1.3 million children who were recipients of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) disability benefits in 2013, about 50% were disabled primarily due to a mental disorder. An increase in the number of children who are recipients of SSI benefits due to mental disorders has been observed through several decades of the program beginning in 1985 and continuing through 2010. Nevertheless, less than 1% of children in the United States are recipients of SSI disability benefits for a mental disorder. At the request of the Social Security Administration, Mental Disorders and Disability Among Low-Income Children compares national trends in the number of children with mental disorders with the trends in the number of children receiving benefits from the SSI program, and describes the possible factors that may contribute to any differences between the two groups. This report provides an overview of the current status of the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders, and the levels of impairment in the U.S. population under age 18. The report focuses on 6 mental disorders, chosen due to their prevalence and the severity of disability attributed to those disorders within the SSI disability program: attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder/conduct disorder, autism spectrum disorder, intellectual disability, learning disabilities, and mood disorders. While this report is not a comprehensive discussion of these disorders, Mental Disorders and Disability Among Low-Income Children provides the best currently available information regarding demographics, diagnosis, treatment, and expectations for the disorder time course - both the natural course and under treatment.
This is a timely book. The question of how to help people with challenging behaviour -and how to design and manage services so that staff, families and users feel that what should be done is being done - is at the top of the agenda. Failure to deal com petently with the issue results in disaffection, poor quality ser vices and a less than optimal quality of life for service users. Moreover, the credibility of services for all people with learning disabilities is intimately connected with how we cope with chal lenging behaviour, a point made recently by a Department of Health Working Group chaired by Jim Mansell (Department of Health, 1993). The book is welcome because it draws together what is known about the important questions from a British perspective, although, of course, most of the underlying issues have world wide relevance. The contributors, while all having a good deal of experience and authority, do not put forward simple portrayals of the problems, nor glib solutions, and this is one of the book's major strengths. Clarity in the field of challenging behaviour is sometimes elu sive. What is presented here forces the reader to confront argu ments in a rational and logical fashion.
This book reviews clinical models for working with developmental disability and behavioural problems. The first section explores the causes and nature of behaviour problems amongst people with physical, learning, language and sensory disabilities, and some key specific conditions. The second section describes the assessment approaches that clinicians will find most useful in evaluating behaviour. The third section covers treatment approaches emphasising the importance of a broad, eclectic approach. The contributors, all acknowledged experts in their fields of paediatrics, psychology and psychiatry, provide a comprehensive overview of this set of major challenges, emphasising the importance of auditory detection, understanding, measurement and treatment.
