Citation

Northumbria University has developed Northumbria Research Link (NRL) to enable users to access the University's research output. Copyright © and moral rights for items on NRL are retained by the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. Single copies of full items can be reproduced, displayed or performed, and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided the authors, title and full bibliographic details are given, as well as a hyperlink and/or URL to the original metadata page. The content must not be changed in any way. Full items must not be sold commercially in any format or medium without formal permission of the copyright holder. The full policy is available online: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/policies.html This document may differ from the final, published version of the research and has been made available online in accordance with publisher policies. To read and/or cite from the published version of the research, please visit the publisher's website (a subscription may be required.) Teaching staff knowledge, attributions and confidence Teaching staff knowledge, attributions and confidence in relation to working with children with an intellectual disability and challenging behaviour Accessible summary: We looked at how much teachers knew about helping children with a learning disability who had behaviour that was challenging in school. We found that: Some teachers knew very little about challenging behaviour and all the different ways to help children with this. Some teachers had beliefs about challenging behaviour that can be unhelpful We need to find ways to help teachers find out more about challenging behaviour and to think about it in different ways. One way to do this could be to give them training about it. Key words: teacher knowledge, attributions, confidence, challenging behaviour 2 Summary The present study examined Scottish teaching staff knowledge about the definition and management of challenging behaviour displayed by children with an intellectual disability. Knowledge levels were relatively low and participants were most likely to define challenging behaviour by function or topography. Teaching staff were largely unaware of positive programming strategies, suggesting that they may not be properly equipped to manage challenging behaviour effectively in the longer term. The teaching staff were found to hold attributions which research suggests are associated with reduced helping behaviour and increased anger. This indicates a continuing need to identify effective ways of promoting more accurate knowledge and positive attributions in teaching staff.