The issue of challenging behaviour is of increasing concern to educators at every level of schooling. In today’s world children are coming to school with increasing levels of stress and uncertainty in their lives.

1. Understanding Challenging Behaviour
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Biography of David J. Carey:
David was employed for many years as the Coordinator of Special Education and
Programme Development at the Froebel College of Education, one of Ireland’s five
primary teacher-training colleges. He has recently decided to pursue his primary
interests, the private practice of psychology and writing books. He is a psychologist
with 25 years experience in both clinical and educational settings. He has worked
with children, adolescents and adults having a variety of emotional and behavioural
difficulties including Oppositional Defiant Disorder, ADHD, Conduct Disorder as well
as serious mental health problems such as bi-polar disorder and schizophrenia. At
Froebel he has lectured in special education and coordinated several post-graduate
programmes including a Master’s degree in special education. He is a part-time
lecturer on the Master’s in educational psychology and special education at University
College Dublin, an occasional lecturer at Roehampton University, London and at
Trinity College Dublin.
David is the author of The Essential Guide to Special Education in Ireland
and is on the editorial board of REACH, the journal of the Irish Association of Special
Education Teachers. He is currently completing a guide to the education of children
with autistic spectrum disorders in mainstream schools. He has published extensively
in Ireland and in the US on various mental health topics and special education issues.
He has lectured internationally and currently is the director of an educational
development programme in Nairobi Kenya, working with Kindergarten teachers and
providing volunteer teachers in the slum schools of Kabira, Africa’s largest slum.
Private Practice:
David includes the following specialities in his private practice:
1.) Hypnosis for self-esteem, self-confidence and habit control
2.) Individual therapy of adolescents and adults
3.) Assessment of children, adolescents and adults
4.) Assessment of child-custody issues
5.) Assessment of ADHD in children, adolescents and adults
6.) Individual cognitive-behaviour therapy for ADHD in adolescents and adults
7.) Group therapy for adults
For an appointment or additional information please call: +353 (0)86 8115764
Email Me: info@davidjcarey.com
_____________________________________________________________________________________
www.davidjcarey.com

2. Understanding Challenging Behaviour
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UNDERSTANDING CHALLENGING
BEHAVIOUR
The issue of challenging behaviour is of increasing concern to educators at every
level of schooling. In today’s world children are coming to school with increasing
levels of stress and uncertainty in their lives.
Coming to school with anxieties, a history of poor early years experiences, and familial
difficulties they bring with them a variety of behaviours that can disrupt the learning
environment for themselves and others.
Efforts are underway to create and sustain interventions at classroom, school, and
system level to reduce the frequency and severity of behavioural disturbances in
schools. An understanding of the psychological, social, familial, and brain-related
factors that contribute to challenging behaviour is the first step towards creating
effective whole-school policies and related classroom strategies that reduce
behavioural disturbances in schools.
What is challenging behaviour?
Challenging behaviour is difficult to define. It is not a diagnosis and not a special
education condition (although it can accompany several special education conditions).
The educational literature does not contain a unified and consensual definition but the
one featured in the INTO handbook is a good reference point.
“Behaviour of such intensity, frequency and duration that the physical
safety of the person or others is likely to be placed in serious jeopardy
or behaviour which is likely to seriously limit or delay access to, and
use of ordinary facilities” (Emerson et. al. 1987) cited in INTO
“Managing Challenging Behaviour”
Challenging behaviour takes a number of forms, some of them low some are high
intensity. Again, the INTO publication offers a good description of the variety of
challenging behaviours encountered in schools with the pupil’s own and/or other
pupil’s learning.
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3. Understanding Challenging Behaviour
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Challenges the day to day functioning of the school.
Challenges the right of staff and pupils to a safe and orderly environment
Has a duration, frequency, intensity or persistence that is beyond the normal range
of what schools tolerate
Is less likely to be responsive to the usual range of interventions used by the school
for misbehaviour (INTO, Managing Challenging Behaviour)
From the educational perspective the most important point to consider is that
whatever the form of behaviour labelled “challenging” it is a type of behaviour
most unlikely to respond to the customary strategies used in the classroom and
school. Behaviour is challenging when our efforts as educators, assuming they are
appropriate in the fist instance, fail to reduce either its frequency or intensity.
What causes challenging behaviour?
Challenging behaviour, whether it occurs in children, adolescents, or adults can arise
from a number of different causal factors that include, but are not limited to
Senile Dementia
Alzheimer’s Disease
Huntington’s Disease
Severe Autism
Severe/Profound General Learning Disability
ADHD
Traumatic Brain Injury
Schizophrenia, Bi-Polar Disorder
Opposition Defiant Disorder
Conduct Disorder
Socio-economic Disadvantage
Attention-seeking
Communication difficulties
Special education conditions
Dysfunctional family systems
Dysfunctional schools
Dysfunctional teachers
Developmentally inappropriate methodology
Child temperament
Educational neglect
Abuse, trauma, chaos
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4. Understanding Challenging Behaviour
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Given the fact that the cause of challenging behaviour can be varied it is critical for
educators to be mindful that whatever interventions, be they at classroom level or
school policy level, must be tailored to the cause. Interventions for challenging
behaviour that arises from ADHD, if applied to children with autism, will likely be
harmful to the child and lead to increased difficulties. For this reason it is not possible
to generate one-size-fits-all interventions or to find a manual of quick fixes. Before
anything is done to create interventions it is necessary to investigate the causal factors,
research the causal condition, take a close look at the class and school environment
and assure there is a proper “fit” between cause and intervention.
Issues in Identifying Challenging Behaviour
Since there is no generally agreed definition of what constitutes challenging behaviour
it follows that there can be great variation in what is identified as challenging, by whom
it is identified, and from whom it is manifested. All behaviour is relative to a context be it
social, environmental, cultural, or historical. What is challenging in one context can be
perceived as quite normal in another. The contextual nature of human behaviour makes
it difficult to be certain what is appropriate or inappropriate.
Another difficulty in ascertaining whether or not behaviour is challenging is the
fact that we cannot be definitive as to whether what we call challenging is a
continuum of behaviour or is a distinct category of behaviour. At what exact point
does a behaviour cease to be irritating and become challenging? Who makes this
judgment and how? What criteria are used to make this judgment? It is well recognised
in schools that a child who is described as challenging by one teacher is perceived as
a typical youngster by another. All teachers, like all parents and all adults, have
differing thresholds of tolerance for behavioural variations. We must exercise caution
before we conclude that a child is exhibiting challenging behaviour. As hard as it may
be to consider there are times when the problem is within us, not the child.
Researchers continue to tease out biological versus environmental factors as causal
agents in challenging behaviour. The old question of nature or nurture has been
answered definitively now. It is neither one or the other but both; it is how our nature is
nurtured that largely determines our behavioural repertoire. There are however,
biological factors that put an individual at greater risk for development challenging
behaviour. Among these are a strong family history of mental health problems or
delinquency and temperament. More will be said about this later.
There are gender related issues involved in challenging behaviour as well. In the
West, as in most countries, girls are socialised differently from boys. Right from infancy
males are played with more vigorously than girls, are allowed to engage in more active
play, and have behavioural patterns that are tolerated differently when they occur than
if they occur in females. Research seems to indicate that only one factor accounts for
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5. Understanding Challenging Behaviour
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the difference in how fathers parent children as opposed to mothers-the amount of
physical play then engage with in their children. Fathers tend to play more vigorously
with children than mothers, and play more vigorously with their male children then their
female children. There is research that seems to indicate that the male sex hormone
plays a role in aggressive behaviour in boys. A definitive answer to some of these
gender issues has yet to be arrived at.
Ethical issues will always raise their head when attempting to create
interventions, programme, and policies for children with challenging behaviour.
What sorts of measures are appropriate? What is the role of
punishment? Are sanctions appropriate?
What behaviours will we attempt to change and what cost will the child pay if we are
successful in changing them. Children who live in a violent and aggressive environment
in their community may pay a price if their own aggressive responses are totally
eliminated in school. There are certain survival factors that have to be taken into
account when we begin to change children’s behaviour in significant ways. I am not
making a case for the tolerance of aggression in school but attempting to raise the
ethical issues involved in placing an obsessive focus on individual behaviour rather
than on behaviour and school structures.
Perspectives on Challenging Behaviour
The response to challenging behaviour is affected by the perspective one takes to
behaviour. The behavioural perspective assumes that all behaviour is learned and
shaped by reinforcement. Positive reinforcement increases behaviour, punishment or
negative reinforcement reduces the frequency of behaviour. From the behaviourist
perspective a human being is a set of responses shaped by the external environment.
A cognitive behaviour perspective places cognition at the centre of behaviour. We
behaviour according to the way we think, visualise, or imagine. From the
perspective the human being is more than just a set of responses to stimuli but is a
conscious being, making choices, perceiving the world in certain ways, and behaving
according to the rules of logic laid down in the thinking brain. The psychodynamic
perspective conceives of behaviour as a result of unconscious conflicts, primitive drives
of which the person is consciously unaware, and deep-seated anxieties or fears. From
this perspective we are pawns of our unconscious minds, pushed and pulled by
powerful forces beyond our awareness.
There is a new model emerging of an alternative perspective from those
mentioned above. It can be referred to under a variety of names but is best
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6. Understanding Challenging Behaviour
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understood as a biopsychosocial perspective. This model is holistic in that it
conceives the human being as a totality of biological, psychological, and social factors
all exerting equal influences on behaviour. In this understanding of behaviour the
human brain has been influenced by genetic and environmental events and factors and
the resulting organisation of the brain is what causes any particular behaviour to
emerge.
Whether we are aware of it or not every educator has one of these perspectives about
children’s behaviour. Our perspectives become our understanding and our
understanding shapes our responses. The more we become aware of our perspective
the more we become able to alter it; the more we can alter it the greater the opportunity
to come to a new understanding and create new solutions.
The Biopsychosocial Perspective
In the biopsychosocial perspective all behaviour is a result of brain growth and genetic,
environmental, social, familial, health, parenting, and hundreds, if not thousands,
miscellaneous factors. At the root of this perspective is the human brain. Much has
been learned about brain function in the past 10 years alone but it is too early to
generalise from this knowledge and create solutions in educational settings. However,
a look at some of the basics can help us understand what is going on “under the
bonnet”.
All children are born with a particular temperamental constitution. This is the biological,
largely genetic basis of personality. Temperament is a given and remains relatively
stable throughout the life span. The behaviours we exhibit change over the course of
time, some can be suppressed to live a more functional life, but the unique
temperament of a person does not change much.
Psychologists have identified a number of temperamental factors:
Activity Level - how active the child generally is
Distractibility - degree of attention/concentration when not interested
Intensity - how loud the child is
Regularity - predictability of functions such as appetite and sleep
Sensory Threshold - sensitivity to physical stimuli
Approach/Withdrawal - characteristic response to new situation/person
Adaptability - how easily the child adapts to transitions/new activities
Persistence - stubbornness, inability to give-up
Mood - tendency to react to work in positive/negative way
Each of these temperamental traits exists on a continuum. A child can be born within
the middle range of any one or all of these or may be born at an extreme end of the
range. All these temperamental traits have value and all can be neutral, positive, or
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7. Understanding Challenging Behaviour
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negative. Any parent of more than one child quickly notices the different temperaments
of their children and gradually becomes aware how different temperaments translate
into different parenting styles. Simply stated, some children are easy to rear than
others and it is temperament that is responsible for this. Just as they can be either easy
or difficult to rear, the differing temperamental traits of children make them more or less
easy to teach. This is nature and it is this natural disposition of children that requires us
to create environments at home and school that closely match temperament.
The Spirited Child
Writing in 1998, Kurcinka describes children she refers to as spirited. Using
temperament as a starting point she identifies six parameters of behaviour
characteristics that make some children difficult to content with. These are:
Intensity - powerful reactions
Persistence - not giving up easily, not changing one’s mind
Sensitivity - quickly responsive
Perceptiveness - notice everything
Adaptability - uncomfortable with change
Energetic - need to be on the move
Kurcinka makes a powerful case to support the idea that it is the responsibility of the
adults in a child’s life to profile the child’s temperament, match it to their own
temperament, and create environments and interventions that facilitate a balance
between the two.
Whether or not we use the psychological definition of temperament of wish to
conceptualise children as “spirited” there is growing evidence that some of what we call
challenging behaviour results from biological traits and must be recognised and dealt
with in an ecological perspective, adapting the surroundings, expectations, and
methodology to the needs of the child.
The Three Ages of the Child
Every child has three ages. The easiest one to comprehend is chronological age
although even at this, seemingly most basic level, confusion can arise. Every 6th
class teachers knows that children at this age differ widely in physical traits and
characteristics. Some are clearly well into the beginning stages of puberty; some have
not reached pubescence at all. Physical differences translate into different expectations
about levels of maturity and behaviour. Children who appear physically beyond their
age are often perceived, as being able to function at a more mature level than their
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8. Understanding Challenging Behaviour
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brain will allow. So looks can be deceiving and it is important, as a general rule, to
tailor interventions to chronological age.
The next age of the child is intellectual age. Intellectual age refers to the general
level of intelligence of the child, that is, stated in lay terms, IQ. Intellectual age
can be greater than or less than chronological age. Intellectual age tends to remain
stable throughout the life span unless disease, trauma, or environmental toxins impact
it. Children with General Learning Disabilities all have significantly below average IQ.
This low IQ means that their level of conceptualisation, generalisation, abstraction,
and comprehension will be below chronological age. We don’t speak to these children
the same way we do to other children because of their intellectual deficits. Likewise, in
the case of gifted or exceptionally able children, we match our language to their level of
cognitive ability. Matching our interventions to the intellectual age of the child makes it
likely we will create more effective solutions to behaviour difficulties.
The third age of children is their emotional age. This is where things can get a bit
confusing. The emotional age of a child fluctuates with environmental factors
such as stress, trauma, anxiety, and health status. A child’s emotional age can be
well below their chronological or intellectual age. Take for example the nine-year old
who pitches a fit after loosing a football match. He is acting like a three-year old in a
tantrum. Now, what is important to realise is that emotional age can be below
chronological or intellectual age but can never be truly above either of them.
All children who appear to be mature beyond their years, who have “old heads on
young shoulders” have been socialised to act that way, and it is an act. A good
example is the child from a home in which there is severe alcoholism. They are often
placed in a position of caring for the parent or other sibling. Becoming “adultified” they
develop attitudes and vocabulary, a pseudo-sophistication, that is deceiving. When we
interact with them at this false level of development things often go awry. As a general
rule it is always advisable to intervene with a child at the level of their emotional age
(remember-it can be below or equal to chronological and intellectual age, but never
above it). This is especially true of discipline.
Getting the match right, perceiving the child as he or she truly is, is an important
part of “fit” that hard to define essence of appropriate education and appropriate
behaviour management.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
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9. Understanding Challenging Behaviour
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Biography of David J. Carey:
David was employed for many years as the Coordinator of Special Education and
Programme Development at the Froebel College of Education, one of Ireland’s five
primary teacher-training colleges. He has recently decided to pursue his primary
interests, the private practice of psychology and writing books. He is a psychologist
with 25 years experience in both clinical and educational settings. He has worked
with children, adolescents and adults having a variety of emotional and behavioural
difficulties including Oppositional Defiant Disorder, ADHD, Conduct Disorder as well
as serious mental health problems such as bi-polar disorder and schizophrenia. At
Froebel he has lectured in special education and coordinated several post-graduate
programmes including a Master’s degree in special education. He is a part-time
lecturer on the Master’s in educational psychology and special education at University
College Dublin, an occasional lecturer at Roehampton University, London and at
Trinity College Dublin.
David is the author of The Essential Guide to Special Education in Ireland
and is on the editorial board of REACH, the journal of the Irish Association of Special
Education Teachers. He is currently completing a guide to the education of children
with autistic spectrum disorders in mainstream schools. He has published extensively
in Ireland and in the US on various mental health topics and special education issues.
He has lectured internationally and currently is the director of an educational
development programme in Nairobi Kenya, working with Kindergarten teachers and
providing volunteer teachers in the slum schools of Kabira, Africa’s largest slum.
Private Practice:
David includes the following specialities in his private practice:
1.) Hypnosis for self-esteem, self-confidence and habit control
2.) Individual therapy of adolescents and adults
3.) Assessment of children, adolescents and adults
4.) Assessment of child-custody issues
5.) Assessment of ADHD in children, adolescents and adults
6.) Individual cognitive-behaviour therapy for ADHD in adolescents and adults
7.) Group therapy for adults
For an appointment or additional information please call: +353 (0)86 8115764
Email Me: info@davidjcarey.com
_____________________________________________________________________________________
www.davidjcarey.com