Behaviour disturbance and mental handicap: typology and longitudinal trends

Behaviour disturbance was investigated in mentally handicapped adults who were living in hospital or at home. The first part of the study describes an empirically derived typology of disturbed behaviour patterns and gives the details of a scale by means of which behaviour disturbance can be quantified along six dimensions: aggression, mood disturbance, communicativeness, antisocial conduct, idiosyncratic mannerisms, and self-injury. The second part of the study used the scale in a longitudinal study of behavioural disturbance. Different forms of disturbed behaviour exhibited different kinds of longitudinal stability, and the long-term changes in one aspect of disturbance depended on subjects' other disturbance scores.