Core Idea

After graduating from college in 2007 I spent a little over a year at a school and residence working with children with autism.  I grew attached to my students and still think about them often.  This led me to wonder: What will happen to these children when they get older?  People with developmental disabilities are living longer.

The authors of this article emphasized this fact and concurrently the lack of research on the impediments to caring for older adults with intellectual disabilities.  According to care staff, the greatest hindrance was challenging behavior.  In fact, I found this to be the case as well, as the hardest part of my work with the autistic students and the least enjoyable was their difficult behavior.  The researchers explored this issue - challenging behavior in older adults with intellectual disabilities – because of its importance to staff welfare and the need to provide the best care for these individuals.  The authors particularly wanted to study the intra-individual change in staff-averse challenging behavior among older adults with intellectual disabilities.    

What they say  

The authors looked at intra-individual change because the majority of prior research used cross-sectional samples or made comparisons between groups of younger and older adults.  They examined “staff-averse” challenging behavior, including aggression, disruptive behavior, and uncooperative behavior.  In addition, the researchers explored the frequency and severity of these behaviors, which they hypothesized would increase as the individual aged.

From 1996-1998, 206 older adults (50 and older) with intellectual disabilities, living in Wyoming and receiving disability services, were given the Inventory for Client and Agency Planning (ICAP) as part of a Medicaid Waiver Evaluation.  A total of 132 were re-evaluated from 2003-2005.  Part of the evaluation included informant ratings of the frequency and severity of five staff-averse challenging behaviors - hurtful to others, destructive to property, disruptive behavior, socially offensive behavior, and uncooperative behavior.  The authors found the opposite of what they predicted – an intra-individual decrease in the frequency and severity of staff-averse challenging behaviors as adults with intellectual disabilities got older.

What it means

Researching staff-averse challenging behavior in older adults with intellectual disabilities has important implications for both the staff and the individual.  This research is especially important as people with developmental disabilities are living longer.  Knowing what to expect would allow the staff to prepare and be trained for it.  As a result the staff’s well-being is protected, thus leading to the best care for the individual.

While this study showed that a decrease in staff-adverse challenging behaviors of adults 50 and older with intellectual disabilities can be expected, the authors caution that there are important limitations in this study that warrant further research.  Nevertheless, the need for additional research just strengthens the authors’ crucial point – the importance of knowing what to expect. 

Reference

Hartley, S., MacLean, W.  (2007).  Staff-Averse Challenging Behaviour in Older Adults with Intellectual Disabilities.  Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 20, 519-528.