Assessing Challenging Behaviors In Autism Spectrum Disorders: Prevalence, Rating Scales, And Autonomic Indicators

Challenging behaviors (CBs) are relatively common concerns in persons with intellectual disabilities (ID) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD), have major impacts on the family, and seriously affect the ability of such individuals to reside in more “normalizing” environments. While the term “challenging behavior” covers a wide gamut of problems in people with ID/ASD, the focus of this chapter will be on CBs of most concern to families and professionals: aggression toward others, property destruction, and self-injury; their prevalence; as well as the use of rating scales to assess their frequency or severity. At the end of this section, we will also cover novel autonomic measures that may help in understanding, predicting (and perhaps preventing) their onset. Although we will not cover functional assessment of CBs, as these are discussed elsewhere in the handbook, brief mention of the possible causes of CBs in this population and assessment issues will be mentioned.