School Staff’s Experiences and Coping Related to the Challenging Behaviour of Children with Smith-Magenis Syndrome in Schools: A Q Methodological Study
Peer reviewed, Journal article
Published version
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https://hdl.handle.net/11250/3043731Utgivelsesdato
2020Metadata
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Originalversjon
Nag, H., Øverland, K., & Nærland, T. (2020). School staff’s experiences and coping related to the challenging behaviour of children with Smith-Magenis syndrome in schools: AQ methodological study. International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 1-16. 10.1080/1034912X.2020.1780199Sammendrag
The aim of this study is to use Q methodology to explore how school staff experience the behaviours of children with Smith-Magenis Syndrome (SMS) in school and how they manage working with these children. Q methodology utilises by-person factor analysis to investigate subjectivity. Fourteen school staff of students with SMS in Norway participated and sorted 40 statements according to their own experience working with a student with SMS. Two distinct viewpoints were revealed, namely, 1) Managing challenging aggressive and self-injury behaviours in school where school staff experienced a range of challenging behaviours, especially aggressive behaviours. 2) Struggling with intense non-physical challenging behaviours in school where school staff experienced behaviours such as the students being very intense, craving attention and pushing buttons. In conclusion, there must be a greater emphasis on education and advising and supporting school staff’s work with the non-physical challenging behaviours aspects of teaching children with SMS, as well as a continued focus on challenging aggressive behaviours.