Exceptional Children 211 Family Perspectives on Inclusive Lifestyle Issues for People with Problem Behavior

ABSTRACT: Interviews were conducted with 17 families of children, youth, and adults with problem behavior (e.g., aggression toward others, property destruction, self-injurious behavior, and pica). From a larger study addressing many questions, the data reported in this article focus on inclusive lifestyle issues that are important to families. Results are organized into categories that emerged from the qualitative analysis, including family life, friendship issues, school issues, community inclusion, and supported living/supported employment. Themes suggest extremely scant and tenuous inclusive lifestyle supports for these people and their families. Key recommendations focus on expanded family support and priority topics for research and training. Positive behavioral support is characterized by value-based principles consistent with the developmental disability policy of indepen-dence, productivity, and inclusion. Merging the behavioral research body of knowledge with current work in augmentative communication, self-determination, friend-ship facilitation, school inclusion, supported employment, and supported living, positive behavioral support principles, as identified in Figure 1, offer a wholistic and multifaceted approach to providing personalized supports and services. Increasingly, research and demon-stration models characterized by positive behavioral support have been described as emphasizing inclusive lifestyle change (Carr e