Abstract
Challenging behaviors of toddlers and preschoolers have begun to occupy a position of conspicuous concern among professionals in the fields of child development, early education, and children's mental health. While this was not the case as recently as one decade ago, it is now understood that concerns regarding challenging behavior are well grounded. For instance, it is abundantly clear that challenging behaviors can interfere with optimal social-emotional and intellectual development, that challenging behaviors that persist beyond early childhood can be increasingly resistant to subsequent intervention, and that the unfavorable sequelae of challenging behaviors can last for long periods of time, even into adulthood. Therefore, recent years have brought considerable attention to efforts to understand challenging behaviors in young children and, especially, to improve efforts of prevention and intervention.
Challenging behaviorhas been defined by Smith and Fox (2003) as “any repeated pattern of behavior, or perception of behavior, that interferes with or is at risk of interfering with optimal learning or engagement in pro-social interactions with peers and adults” (p. 5). This definition positions challenging behavior as a phenomenon that is noteworthy because of the effects it produces on the child's interaction with the environment and, especially, the social environment. Smith and Fox continued by listing some of the behavioral topographies that are commonly categorized as challenging. These include externalizing behaviors such as prolonged tantrums, physical and verbal aggression, property destruction, self-injury, and disruptive motor and vocal responding (such as screaming and persistent echolalia). They may also include internalizing behaviors such as noncompliance and severe withdrawal. It should be pointed out that the term challenging behaviors is used commonly in the field of early childhood (and in other contexts) and is directly analogous to the term problem behaviors, which is more typically adopted when referring to difficulties with older populations.
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Dunlap, G., Fox, L. (2009). Positive Behavior Support and Early Intervention. In: Sailor, W., Dunlap, G., Sugai, G., Horner, R. (eds) Handbook of Positive Behavior Support. Issues in Clinical Child Psychology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-09632-2_3
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