Staff reports of setting events associated with challenging behavior.
Staff can quickly map each client’s personal setting events—use their checklist to stop guessing.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked direct-care staff to list events that happened before challenging behavior.
They used a short written inventory with adults who have intellectual disability.
Workers checked boxes for things like "crowded room" or "late lunch" and noted if behavior went up or down.
What they found
Every adult had a different trigger list.
One person acted out when the radio played, another when breakfast was late.
No single event predicted behavior for the whole group.
How this fits with other research
McGill et al. (2003) ran the same inventory two years earlier and saw the same pattern.
Kennedy et al. (1993) looks like a clash at first—they cut problem behavior by removing morning setting events.
The difference is method: H used an experiment with kids, Peter used staff reports with adults.
Symons et al. (2005) backs the idiosyncrasy point in children with Cornelia de Lange syndrome.
Why it matters
You cannot assume one client’s trigger fits another.
Run the brief Peter inventory at intake, then fold the unique items into the behavior plan.
Five minutes of staff check-boxes can save weeks of guessing.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Hand the one-page Peter inventory to the morning shift and ask them to circle events that happened before last week’s top three behaviors.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study sought to identify the setting events reported by care staff as more and less likely to be associated with the challenging behaviors of people with intellectual disabilities. Sixty-five staff working with 22 individuals were interviewed using an inventory of putative setting events. Findings were collated to allow identification of those events reported to be associated with increased and decreased likelihood of challenging behavior. Some events were reported as strongly associated with the occurrence of challenging behavior, some as strongly associated with its absence, some as largely "inert," and many as idiosyncratically associated with occurrence, absence, or inertness. Different categories of setting events contributed different relative amounts to reported variation in challenging behavior. The use of the inventory described here, or modified versions, may be a useful way of identifying relationships between setting events and challenging behaviors, which suggest ways in which routine service provision might be modified to help prevent challenging behavior.
Behavior modification, 2005 · doi:10.1177/0145445503259392