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What you’ll find in the pictures
The scenarios in this category show a wide range of behaviours that happen for many different reasons.
Supporters will find examples of
- behaviour that challenges: self-injury, destructive behaviour, aggression, withdrawal, lack of self care, night wandering, and inappropriate sexual and interpersonal behaviour;
- behavioural triggers: memories of abuse or flashbacks, feelings of lack of control, communication problems, change, difficult environments, overdirective support;
- health and mental health causes: dementia, bereavement, depression;
- interventions: psychotherapy, social care interventions, like listening, reflecting and offering choices and activities, modelling appropriate behaviour, or changing care provision
Each scenario can be used to explore the issues that may be troubling someone, help them reflect on their own behaviour as well as situations they find difficult, and to begin to think about a way to make the situation better.
Feeling Cross and Sorting It Out
Behaviour – what you need to know
The way a person behaves is an important key to understanding what they are thinking or feeling. Most people communicate their feelings and wishes using language, but for some people, including many people with learning disabilities, they are unable to explain how they feel in words. If they are worried, frustrated or in pain, for example, they may show this by behaving in ways that their friends or supporters find challenging. They may act aggressively, hurt themselves or others, destroy belongings, or behave in other ways that cause problems, for example, by running away.
Sometimes people may not have learnt or understood about some rules of behaviour, for example interpersonal boundaries or sexual behaviour, and this can also lead to very serious problems. Sometimes a health or mental health condition may have caused a person to forget these rules and behave in unexpected ways. Difficult or destructive behaviour can also sometimes point to distress caused by abuse or trauma in a person’s past.
Good support will try to understand the reasons behind a person’s behaviour, and look for situations, places or activities that can act as triggers. With a good understanding of the way a person communicates through their behaviour, and what they do and don’t understand, supporters can help them avoid difficult situations, learn about boundaries, and find new ways of doing things. Professional interventions by a Behaviour Support Team, social care team, psychologist or psychotherapist, in cases of mental illness or trauma, may also be needed.
Definition of a learning disability
Our books help a wide range of people who understand pictures better than words, but their main audience is people with a learning disability, also known as an intellectual or developmental disability in other parts of the world.
This is a lifelong disability that may affect thinking, learning, emotional (adaptive) functioning and independent living skills. This sort of disability is distinct from a specific processing impairment, like dyslexia or attention deficit disorder. In the UK these impairments are typically referred to as “learning difficulties”, but this term is also preferred by some people with developmental disability, so the meaning is becoming blurred as people self-define.
As well as the primary audience, the books are often useful to people with low levels of literacy or specific processing impairment (“learning difficulties”, as per the traditional definition above), as well as people with sensory disabilities, other communication disorders (e.g. associated with dementia), and second language users.
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