Positive Behaviour Support for Children with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities in the United Kingdom

There is a large body of research indicating that when positive behaviour support is implemented within schools, there are decreases in school discipline referrals and challenging behaviour. There are only two studies that have used schoolwide positive behaviour support in a school where the majority of students have been diagnosed with intellectual disabilities. While these studies have shown the effectiveness of PBS, neither study has used validated measures or direct observations of student behaviour to determine if changes reported by teachers were seen in the students. This study attempted to find out the prevalence of students with intellectual and developmental; disabilities (IDD) and challenging behaviour in the southeast of England. Additionally, positive behaviour support was implemented schoolwide for a special school in England. Validated measures and direct observations were conducted for both school staff and students. Results indicated increases in positive feedback to students were achievable after five hours of training in positive behaviour support. Additionally, student incidents were lower for five of the six students observed in this study. While these changes were measured, due to the number of limitations, no generalizations can be made in regards to the effectiveness of the intervention. The study had a number of challenges however, not least being the drop out of children from the study and the difficulties of obtaining information on standardised questionnaires from parents and teachers.