What Is Meant by Behaviours That Challenge?
Behaviours that challenge are behaviours that may place the person or others at risk, make everyday life harder, or show that a person’s needs are not being understood or met. The term is often used when supporting people with a learning disability, autistic people, or people with complex communication, sensory, emotional, mental health or environmental needs.
Importantly, the phrase does not mean that the person is “the problem”. It was introduced to shift attention away from blaming the person and towards the “challenge” faced by services, systems, and support teams in responding properly. In practice, it is still common to hear professionals say that people “exhibit challenging behaviour” or that we need to “prevent challenging behaviour”. But this language can shift attention away from what the behaviour may be communicating. Instead of focusing only on the behaviour itself, we need to look at the signs it points to and what needs to change around the person and to know how to identify people’s needs, early warning signs and potential triggers so that we can minimise behaviours that challenge.
This is why our care teams take the time to understand each person in depth, including their needs, wishes, struggles, triggers, and behaviours. Our focus is on proactive care, using the capable environments model to reduce distress before it escalates. Reducing behaviours that challenge also means reducing the need for restrictive interventions.That is why our teams are highly trained in Positive Behaviour Support, PROACT-SCIPr-UK® and trauma-informed care. We support people’s lives by creating skill-building plans that promote positive outcomes through person-centred approaches.
Common Triggers of Behaviour That Challenges
Behaviours that challenge rarely happen “out of nowhere”. When we delve deeper into challenging behaviour, it affects many aspects of one’s life, and it becomes evident that it arises from various factors, including cognitive, emotional, or sensory differences. Rather than adopting a mindset that limits one person’s abilities and labelling it as problem behaviour, it is essential to acknowledge that what may be challenging for one person may not be for another. The underlying causes, such as unmet needs and environmental stressors, dynamically interact with personal experiences, emotions, and cognitive processes, allowing behavioural complexities to emerge. When triggers are identified, it is easier for families and carers to develop a care plan to elicit positive behaviour using positive behaviour support (PBS) strategies and interventions, leading to improved mental health and well-being.
Understanding challenging behaviour is crucial when it comes to learning how to manage challenging behaviour. Delving deeper, many parents, family members or guardians ask themselves how they can encourage positive behaviour in their autistic child or child with a learning disability.
Communication Difficulties
When a young person, for example, expresses their wants, emotions, or desires through behaviours that challenge, it can be difficult to understand the root cause of the behaviour. One of the most common triggers is not being able to communicate pain, fear, frustration, choice, refusal, hunger, tiredness, confusion or distress in a way that others understand.
For some people, behaviour may be the clearest available way to say:
“I need help.”
“I do not want this.”
“I am overwhelmed.”
“I do not understand.”
“I need a break.”
“I am in pain.”
All behaviour is communication! Let’s figure out what your child is telling you. Rather than seeing behaviour as ‘challenging’, look at the environment, sensory triggers, or unmet needs that might make things difficult. Understanding what your child tries to express helps to respond with empathy, not punishment. – our PBS team.
Having difficulty communicating and behaviours of concern can present in different ways, from communication barriers to challenges in understanding social cues. That is why promoting a proactive approach, such as Positive Behaviour Support, can encourage patience, empathy and more positive forms of communication, helping to increase positive behaviours over time.
Sensory Overload
For autistic people, sensory differences can be a powerful trigger for distress. It can trigger sensations that can provoke intense reactions that can vary from agitation to emotional breakdowns.
Common sensory triggers may include:
- Alarms, shouting, traffic, crowded rooms, sudden noise levels
- Bright lighting, flickering lights, glare
- Clothing labels, personal care, bedding, unexpected touch
- Perfumes, cleaning products, and food smells
- Certain foods, toothpaste, and medication textures
- Too little movement, too much movement, difficult transitions
- Lack of personal space and busy environments
Changes in Routine or Environment
A person’s environment can either support regulation or increase distress. Different environmental factors can trigger behaviours that challenge. People with behaviour that challenges may respond unexpectedly when faced with new situations or disruptions to their established routines. It’s vital to understand that these behavioural adjustments are more likely to be a normal response to unexpected circumstances than a sign of intentional rebellion.
n such situations, it is imperative to approach behaviour that challenges with empathy and open-mindedness. Rather than resorting to strict discipline or restrictive measures, actively listening and understanding the underlying reasons for the behavioural changes is more effective. Creating a safe and non-judgmental space encourages open communication and fosters trust, enabling individuals to express their concerns or discomfort constructively.
Furthermore, a progressive approach and positive behaviour involve adapting and modifying the environment to meet the person’s needs. Whether it’s adjusting the daily routine, creating visual schedules, or implementing sensory supports, these modifications can significantly alleviate behavioural challenges. Moreover, we promote independence and self-advocacy by involving individuals in decision-making and empowering them to have a voice in their own routines and to choose environments that become their sacred place.
Physical Discomfort or Pain
When a child, young person or adult experiences physical pain or discomfort, it can manifest in challenging behaviour as a means of communication or coping. For example, someone experiencing difficulty due to health challenges may act aggressively or have self-injurious behaviours. Recognising that challenging behaviour may be a response to underlying physical challenges is crucial, and addressing the people’s physical well-being can help soothe their distress and reduce the challenging behaviour. By observing and analysing behaviour patterns, carers and professionals can identify potential roots of physical discomfort. Healthcare professionals can address any underlying challenges, provide necessary care, ease discomfort, and reduce challenging behaviour by adequately assessing their physical health.
In addition to identifying and treating the root cause of physical discomfort, it is essential to implement proactive strategies and positive behaviour support to manage challenging behaviours. This involves creating a supportive environment that prioritises the people’s physical well-being. For instance, ensuring a comfortable seating arrangement, providing regular breaks for movement and stretching, and using appropriate assistive devices can help relieve physical discomfort and reduce the occurrence of challenging behaviour.
Adopting a holistic approach that addresses the individual’s physical needs alongside their behavioural challenges can enhance their overall well-being and promote a better quality of life.
Unmet Needs or Desires
Behaviours that challenge can sometimes be a person’s way of communicating that an important need is not being met. This may include physical needs, such as pain, hunger, tiredness or discomfort, as well as emotional needs, such as wanting reassurance, choice, connection, privacy or control over what happens next. When a person cannot express these needs clearly through words, behaviour may become the clearest signal that something around them needs to change.
When younger children, young people or adults show challenging behaviour, it often means that an important need, feeling or desire is not being understood or met. These behaviours may be a way of communicating distress, frustration, discomfort, fear, boredom, loneliness, pain, sensory overload or the need for connection, choice, control or reassurance. To understand and respond to the behaviour, it is important to look beyond what the person is doing and ask what the behaviour may be trying to communicate. For example, self-injurious behaviour may be linked to unmet emotional needs, difficulty expressing distress, sensory needs, pain, or a desire for attention, comfort or social interaction. Responding with patience, consistency and curiosity helps us identify the real need behind the behaviour, rather than simply reacting to the behaviour itself.
By offering meaningful choices, emotional reassurance, accessible communication, predictable routines and a nurturing environment, we can help people have their needs met in safer and healthier ways. Using a proactive approach can reduce distress, strengthen trust and minimise behaviours that challenge over time.
Emotional Triggers and Mental Health Factors
Autistic people may be up to four times more likely to experience depression than non-autistic people. Realising that behaviour often reflects mental health and underlying challenges, carers and other healthcare professionals can adopt a humanised approach that prioritises continuous support and empathy, especially for individuals with learning disabilities, mental health issues or learning difficulties. Realising that behaviour often reflects mental health and underlying challenges, carers and other healthcare professionals can adopt a humanised approach that prioritises continuous support and empathy.
Acknowledging the impact of mental health challenges and health difficulties on a child’s behaviour and offering families the necessary resources and guidance to navigate these challenges is meaningful. By refraining from offensive language and focusing on understanding the root causes of certain behaviours, we create a safe space for children and adults to express themselves and develop new strategies for coping in a less challenging way.
Anxiety or Stress
Behaviours that challenge may happen when someone feels unsafe, anxious, frightened, confused, rejected, rushed or emotionally overwhelmed. This can be especially relevant for people who have experienced trauma, repeated placement breakdowns, restrictive care, hospital admissions, exclusion, loss, bereavement, bullying or communication failure and require adequate coping strategies.
Behaviours occur as part of a visible part of a much deeper emotional experience. For example, a person may appear “aggressive” when they are actually scared, or may refuse support because the task, setting or staff approach feels unsafe. People are the most vulnerable when they feel as if they have lost a part of themselves through the experience of having panic attacks or anxious thoughts that lead to stressful situations. In the most vulnerable state, people often start feeling overwhelmed and and may want to cause self-harm.
Frustration and Anger
Frustration and anger can be powerful trigger responses when a person feels unheard, misunderstood, rushed, restricted or unable to express what they need. For people with a learning disability or autistic people, frustration may build when communication is not accessible, choices are limited, routines change unexpectedly, sensory needs are not recognised, due to heightened irritability coming from a particular situation or support feels too demanding.
Anger should not be seen only as “bad behaviour”. It may be a visible response to distress, fear, pain, loss of control, unmet needs or repeated attempts to communicate that have not been understood. When frustration is noticed early, support teams can pause, reduce demands, offer reassurance, adapt communication, change the environment and help the person regain a sense of safety and control before the situation escalates. And this is the key component for a shift to happen.
Past Trauma
The mental scars carved in people’s minds and bodies may last longer than anyone can think. When a person has experienced trauma in their life, it can profoundly impact their thoughts, emotions, body language and actions. Understanding the link between past trauma and challenging behaviour is a crucial step towards fostering empathy and providing the needed support, since the triggers of the past trauma can quickly come and create new challenging behaviour.
This is why behaviours that challenge should not be understood only in the moment. Sometimes the behaviour is connected to what the person has lived through. A person may appear angry, resistant, withdrawn, or distressed, but beneath that response there may be fear, overwhelm, mistrust, pain, or a need to feel safe and in control again. When we support individuals who have had traumatic experiences, our teams use trauma-informed care to fully understand the person and the events that led to trauma with patience, sensitivity and curiosity, asking what may have happened to the person rather than focusing only on what the person is doing.
When someone has experienced restraint or restrictive intervention, we first look at whether all proactive and therapeutic approaches were explored before a reactive strategy was used. Through PROACT, our aim is to reduce restraint by building skills, creating capable environments, using multimedia support where helpful, and identifying needs and potential triggers early. This helps our teams respond before distress escalates into crisis, supporting people in a way that feels safer, more predictable and more respectful of their lived experience.
Preventive Strategies for Behaviour that Challenges
Creating preventive strategies for behaviour that challenges requires knowledge that clear routines can help the process. By implementing well-defined and consistent schedules, carers empower people to be part of and get involved in their daily life activities.
These routines provide a sense of structure and predictability, which can help reduce anxiety and confusion. The significance of precise routines and proactive work towards creating an environment that adopts a sense of security and stability is their priority.
Implementing Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) techniques can be instrumental in preventing and managing behaviour that challenges. At Unique Community Services, we adopt PBS proactive strategies, focusing on understanding the underlying causes and triggers of the challenging behaviour. By identifying and addressing these root causes, we develop tailored care plans that promote positive behaviour and reduce the occurrence of challenging behaviour.
Utilising PBS techniques involves fostering a supportive environment that encourages personal growth and provides individuals with the tools they need to thrive. By implementing preventive strategies grounded in PBS, we can help individuals achieve their fullest potential while ensuring their well-being and enriched lives.
Unique Community Services Use Holistic Approach to Behaviours That Challenges
At Unique Community Services, reducing behaviours that challenge begins with understanding the person, rather than reacting to the behaviour alone. Our Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) is grounded in PROACT, trauma-informed care and an outcome-based approach, helping us explore whether proactive strategies have been fully used before any reactive response is considered.
Our PBS support focuses on:
- Understanding the person behind the behaviour
- Identifying needs, triggers and early signs of distress
- Using PROACT to reduce restraint and reactive responses
- Creating capable environments
- Building everyday skills and greater independence
- Using multimedia and communication support where helpful
- Strengthening trusted relationships with highly trained therapeutic and clinical teams
- Supporting safer, more positive outcomes at people’s own homes and communities
This Is What Happens When We Believe in People
The team that works with us and William are a credit to the company. We feel blessed that they are now part of our family’s lives. Saying thank you just doesn’t seem enough. My wife and I have started going out again and living a regular life. My 21-year-old daughter and her boyfriend are managing to go out in the evenings, which hasn’t been possible until now. – William’s father
This year, William’s experienced only a few minor behaviours of concern which were handled as professionally as we’ve come to expect. He’s happy, and so are we. – William’s parents.
Watch the short documentary about William’s care journey, featuring insights from our Registered Manager and Care Coordinator.
Offices in Manchester and Leeds.
