What Eric Emerson’s Definition of “Challenging Behaviour” Actually Means

A parent or practitioner engaged in a calm, supportive interaction with a child, illustrating the values behind understanding challenging behaviour.

When I first came across the term “challenging behaviour”, I remember thinking: challenging for whom? It sounded vague, a little clinical and strangely polite for something that can feel extremely stressful for families.

The history made the term more understandable, but it also revealed something important: it does not belong to one person. Eric Emerson helped establish a widely used definition and developed an influential body of work, but it is more accurate to place his contribution within a broader movement away from labels that treated the person as the problem.

Where Did the Term “Challenging Behaviour” Come From?

Emerson and Stewart Einfeld later explained that the term was initially promoted in North America by the organisation then known as The Association for People with Severe Handicaps. It offered an alternative to language such as “abnormal”, “maladaptive”, “disturbed” and “problem behaviour”.

The phrase also became part of British discussions about community services during the 1980s. Emerson was one of the authors of an influential 1987 paper about challenging behaviour and community services, and his 1995 book provided the operational definition that many services and researchers still recognise.

So Emerson’s role matters, but describing him as the sole originator would overstate the history.

What Did Emerson’s Definition Actually Say?

Emerson’s definition was narrower than the way the phrase is sometimes used in everyday conversation. In essence, it referred to culturally unusual behaviour whose intensity, frequency or duration seriously threatens physical safety, or seriously limits a person’s access to ordinary community facilities.

That threshold matters. The term was not intended to cover every behaviour an adult finds inconvenient, unusual or difficult to manage. Nor was it meant to function as a diagnosis or a description of someone’s personality.

Why Context Matters

One reason for using the term was to avoid making unsupported assumptions about what was “inside” the person. Behaviour that appears irrational when separated from its context may be orderly, adaptive or related to what happens before and after it. Pain, communication difficulties, sensory conditions, trauma, task demands, access to preferred activities and the responses of other people can all be relevant.

The idea that the behaviour presents a challenge to services, rather than a problem carried around by the person, is often associated with Emerson. More precisely, Emerson and Einfeld traced that wording to earlier British service literature, including Blunden and Allen. They also issued an important warning: changing terminology does not automatically change practice.

That point still feels current. A respectful phrase can become another label if people stop observing the behaviour, the context and the person’s quality of life.

What the Term Does — and Does Not — Tell Us

Used carefully, the term can prompt better questions. It can direct attention towards risk, context, skills, support and participation. Used carelessly, it can flatten very different situations into one vague category.

  • It is not a diagnosis.
  • It is not a synonym for non-compliance or inconvenience.
  • It does not prove that every behaviour carries one simple message.
  • It does not replace health checks, risk assessment or a careful functional assessment.
  • It should not make us overlook the person’s communication, sensory needs, learning history or environment.

People often say that “behaviour is communication”. That can be a compassionate and useful starting point, especially when spoken language is limited. But behaviour is not always a simple code that an adult can decode instantly. It provides information. We still need to gather evidence, test our working hypotheses and remain willing to revise them.

How This Changes PBS Practice

In PBS supervision, I repeatedly see how quickly the conversation changes when we stop treating a label as an explanation and instead describe what the person does, the setting in which it happens and what follows. Sometimes behaviour reduces after support becomes more predictable, a communication response is taught or a stressor is changed. That is a valuable observation, but it is not a universal promise and it does not tell us to skip assessment.

Modern Positive Behavioural Support places quality of life, prevention, meaningful participation and least restrictive support at the centre. The UK PBS Competence Framework was published by the PBS Coalition UK in 2015, while Gore and colleagues’ 2013 paper set out a widely cited definition and scope for PBS. These are related sources, not a single 2019 competence-framework paper.

NICE guidance

NICE Guideline NG11 applies specifically to children, young people and adults with a learning disability whose behaviour challenges. It recommends person-centred work with the individual and their family or carers, attention to health and environmental factors, direct observation where appropriate, and a functional understanding that remains a working hypothesis rather than a fixed label.

That scope is important. The phrase developed mainly within intellectual and learning-disability services. It should not be casually applied to every difficult situation involving every child.

Why Some People Prefer Different Language

Some families and professionals prefer “behaviour that challenges”, “behaviour of concern” or a plain description of what happened. Those choices can reduce the sense that “challenging” is a permanent characteristic of the person. Whenever possible, it is worth asking the individual and family what language they prefer.

However, better language only helps when it leads to better action: clearer descriptions, calmer observation, attention to rights and health, teaching useful skills, improving environments and reducing unnecessary restriction.

What This Means for Your Child

If someone uses this term about your child, ask them to be specific. What exactly happened? How often, how intensely and for how long? What risk or restriction followed? What was happening beforehand? What changed afterwards? What skills or support might help?

The aim is not to excuse harm or pretend that safety does not matter. It is to separate the person from the behaviour and respond in a way that makes future safety, communication and participation more likely.

I have seen parents visibly soften when behaviour is reframed as something to understand rather than a moral failure. There is often a breath, a release of guilt they did not realise they were carrying. That shift can make room for calmer observation and better teaching. It does not remove the need for health checks, assessment or risk planning when those are indicated.

The most useful legacy of this work is therefore not a perfect label. It is the discipline of asking what the behaviour means in context, what impact it has, and what needs to change so the person can live a safer and fuller life.

If reading this has helped you see the behaviour differently but you are still unsure what a repeated situation may be telling you, the free 25-minute Behaviour Clarity Session offers a calm space to describe one pattern and consider what information may matter next. It is not an assessment, diagnosis or confirmed explanation of function.

Check suitability and choose a time

References

Emerson, E., Toogood, S., Mansell, J., Barrett, S., Bell, C., Cummings, R., & McCool, C. (1987). Challenging behaviour and community services: 1. Introduction and overview. Journal of the British Institute of Mental Handicap, 15(4), 166–169. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-3156.1987.tb00430.x

Emerson, E. (1995). Challenging behaviour: Analysis and intervention in people with learning disabilities. Cambridge University Press.

Emerson, E., & Einfeld, S. L. (2011). Challenging behaviour (3rd ed.). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511861178

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. (2015). Challenging behaviour and learning disabilities: Prevention and interventions for people with learning disabilities whose behaviour challenges (NICE Guideline NG11). https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng11

Gore, N. J., McGill, P., Toogood, S., Allen, D., Hughes, J. C., Baker, P., Hastings, R. P., Noone, S. J., & Denne, L. D. (2013). Definition and scope for positive behavioural support. International Journal of Positive Behavioural Support, 3(2), 14–23.

Positive Behavioural Support Coalition UK. (2015). Positive Behavioural Support: A competence framework. https://pbs-academy.com/pbs-competence-framework/

Carr, E. G., Dunlap, G., Horner, R. H., Koegel, R. L., Turnbull, A. P., Sailor, W., Anderson, J., Albin, R. W., Koegel, L. K., & Fox, L. (2002). Positive behavior support: Evolution of an applied science. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 4(1), 4–16. https://doi.org/10.1177/109830070200400102