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The purpose of this paper is to determine the relation between quality of life (QoL), mental illness, challenging behaviour and institutionalisation in an adult population with intellectual disabilities (ID).

The study assessed the QoL and its conditioning factors in 142 subjects with different degrees of ID. The GENCAT and Quality of Life in Late Stage Dementia scale were used to evaluate QoL, the Psychiatric Assessment Schedule for Adults with Developmental Disability and Diagnostic Assessment for the Severely Handicapped-II scale to assess mental illness and the Inventory for Client and aetiology Planning scale to assess challenging behaviour.

Individuals who live in residential care homes were found to have significantly impaired QoL (<0.001). Individuals with challenging behaviour presented significantly lower QoL, regardless of ID aethiology and degree, while psychiatric disorders did not seem to have a direct influence on individual QoL.

This paper provides new insight into the importance of challenging behaviour and psychiatric disorders in the QoL of individuals with ID.

Animal spirits in modern economics has a specific meaning; it refers to the restless and inconsistent element in the economy as well as the peculiar relationship people have with ambiguity and uncertainty, which tends to lead to paralysis or incredible confidence and energy in decision‐making and risk taking. Animal spirits have also been used to explain peaceful periods and instability or interpret track records of success and periods of disarray or spectacular failure, high levels of trust and confidence or extreme pessimism and distrust. Willingness to undertake extreme effort or self‐sacrifice to get things done is another expression of animal spirits, which can again go in the opposite direction with people shirking responsibilities, and practicing generalized selfishness or individualism. Such behaviours can have visible effects on the performance of public agencies or civil service agencies, in the behaviour of leaders in the public or private sector, or in the economic performance of a country. Differences across agencies and countries over time can also be explained if one is able to distinguish the effect of animal spirits. Using a logistic model, this paper tests for the existence of “animal spirits” in the capacity development interventions spearheaded by the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF)‐funded institutions. The analysis and findings highlight, amongst others, the importance of non‐economic factors in shaping the capacity development sphere. Understanding this nature of animal spirits is critical to designing and implementing effective programs for capacity development in Africa. It is particularly important to focus on issues of leadership and leadership development, including the capacity for leaders to instil confidence and piece together stories that motivate people into a common vision of the future or to achieve common objectives.

The purpose of this study is to reflect on some of the challenges faced by caregivers when making decisions relating to school placements for their child with a learning disability.

Quotes from parents and caregivers, contacted via a national syndrome support charity, are shared, along with broader perspectives gained through the charity’s helpline service.

A number of themes are discussed, including friendships and role models; expectations and educational targets; training, speciality and capacity of staff and managing a widening gap.

When considering the future of education provision, it is important to consider some of the tensions between an ideology of inclusion and the current realities of service provision. To create effective solutions to achieving more effective inclusion, the concerns and experiences of families, as well as children, must be considered.

The contemporary organizations invest a lot of funds to gain a better understanding of the emerging needs of customers in near future. However, customers sometimes do not appreciate these hard efforts which lead to some unanticipated results for the firm. The purpose of this paper is to identify the customers’ perceptions about the future anticipatory measures done by a company.

The authors employed triangulation of methods to develop credibility of techniques and the findings of this qualitative research study. A semi-structured interview with six participants is used to explore the phenomena. After the authors gained a better understanding about the phenomena, a focus group discussion with eight participants was held to gain a better understanding of perceptions of future. Finally, the digital ethnography was employed to better explore customer behavior.

The results show that future anticipatory efforts conducted by a company are highly appreciated by the customers. This, in turn, builds a positive autobiographical memory for customers that lead to the development of a brand relationship.

The application of futurology to study within a marketing context and the employment of autobiographical memory are unique products of this study.

Sleep disorders are extremely common in children and young people, and even more so in those with developmental disabilities. This client subgroup may prove refractory to standard behavioural and other psychosocial interventions that usually help and it is frequent for clinicians to resort to medication approaches given the high levels of personal and family distress that result. There is a need not only for further well structured research in this field but also for efforts to tackle the frequent relative neglect by clinicians of more researched and considered approaches. This review examines these issues selectively, focusing on important clinical issues and predicaments, and attempts a start at an evidence‐based background for practical and rational prescribing in this area of common childhood psychopathology.

Thorough assessment of communication is of utmost importance for successful working with people with learning disabilities. Indeed, recent legislation now makes it incumbent on professionals working with people with learning disabilities to address issues of communication, both their own communication to clients and that of their clients. There are clear associations between learning disabilities, emotional, behavioural and psychiatric problems, and impaired communication. The nature of the communication impairments experienced by individuals with learning disabilities is likely to be complex, with cumulative and inter‐related features associated with the general developmental delay, the phenotypical presentation in a particular syndrome, the presence of specific linguistic impairments and the indirect impact of other difficulties on communication skills. A number of parameters need to be addressed in a communication assessment in order to take account of the complexity and dynamism of the communication process. They concern not only the underlying developmental and communication impairments affecting particular areas of functioning, but also many aspects of the wider context in which the communication takes place.

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the dominant approaches used to explain causes of challenging behaviour.

This paper is the second in a two‐part series. It presents the causes of challenging behaviour according to the three theoretical approaches that have dominated the literature: applied behaviour analysis; biological factors; and psychiatric disorders.

It is apparent that the causes of challenging behaviour are likely to be complex and involve multiple factors. The approaches that have dominated the literature focus on single causes and do not explore possible interactions between various causes. Given the shortcomings of existing approaches, a fourth approach, the biopsychosocial model, is proposed as an alternative model to explain the causes of challenging behaviour.

This paper is the most recent of only a few providing an overview of the various approaches that seek to explain the causes of challenging behaviour.