Challenging Behavior

Challenging behavior is the term emphasizes that the behaviors constitute a challenge to other people to find effective ways of responding to them. It underlines the idea that the person is not seen as problematic in them. Rather, the problem lies in the interaction between the person, their behavior and their social environment. Some examples of challenging behavior are destructiveness, self-injury, and stereotypes mannerisms and so on. Aggression is one of the challenging behaviors. Aggressive behavior typically refers to the intended infliction of harm or injury on another person.

Define of aggressive behavior

According to Berkowitz (1993) aggression refers to goal-directed motor behavior that has a deliberate intent to harm or injure another object or person. On the other hand, did not conceptualize aggression to include intentions, but instead considered aggression as harmful behavior that violates social norms. Buss & Perry (1992) defined verbal and physical aggression as the motor components of behavior that involve hurting or harming others. Barratt (1991) further classified aggression into three categories: premeditated, medically related, and impulsive aggression. The distinction between premeditated (proactive) and impulsive (reactive) aggression has been made by others. In people with developmental disabilities, aggressive behavior can occur in many forms or topographies, including hitting, biting, choking, kicking, spitting, and hair pulling.

Prevalence of aggressive behavior in the non-disabled and intellectually disabled population

In intellectually disabled population, the prevalence estimates vary gender (more makes are aggressive then females), age (more adolescents and young adults are aggressive than children), and degree of disability (more people with severe cognitive impairments are aggressive than people with less severe cognitive impairments) Aggressive behavior in people with mental retardation and related developmental disabilities