Identification of children at risk of severe challenging behaviour.
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The Identification of young children at highest RIsk for developing Severe Challenging behaviour (i-RISC): Proof of principle and appraisal of feasibility.
IRAS ID
235418
Contact name
Chris Oliver
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Birmingham
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
Can we predict which children with developmental delay are at greatest risk of developing challenging behaviour?
Challenging behaviours such as aggression, self-injury and destruction of property are persistent and have negative consequences for individuals, families and services. Interventions to prevent the development of these behaviours are essential and should be targeted to children at greatest risk of developing the behaviours.
The aim of the proposed project, funded by the British Academy of Childhood Disability and the Castang Foundation, is to evaluate a screening tool which could predict which children are at greatest risk of developing severe challenging behaviour. We have used The Self-injury, Aggression and Destruction Screening Questionnaire Revised (SAD-SQ(R)) previously to identify a number of behavioural risk markers for challenging behaviour. We now want to determine whether the SAD-SQ(R), can accurately predict the development of challenging behaviour over time.
The first stage of the research will use existing data from a large sample of children with a developmental delay to develop an algorithm that classifies risk of challenging behaviour into three categories: minimal, moderate and high.
The second stage of the research will recruit a new sample of young children with developmental delay, not yet showing severe challenging behaviour from local health/education services and a participant database held by the research team. The SAD-SQ(R) will be administered at Time 1 and then again 12 months later at Time 2. The newly developed algorithm will be applied to the SAD-SQ(R) data for each child at Time 1, classifying them as at minimal, moderate or high risk of developing challenging behaviour. Time 2 data will be analysed to see whether the SAD-SQ(R) accurately predicted the challenging behaviour.
Data from this project will provide evidence of the utility of a low cost screening tool, to facilitate strategic stratified preventative intervention.
REC name
North East - Tyne & Wear South Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/NE/0249
Date of REC Opinion
10 Aug 2018
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion