What is Research and clinical audit?

The Hesley Group believes that services supporting people with the most challenging needs associated with severe intellectual disabilities and autism have a key role in expanding knowledge regarding effective methods of assessing and intervening to meet these needs. We continuously evaluate our effectiveness to improve our own practice and also contribute to professional and scientific conferences and literature in this field.

Recent publications

Furniss, F. & Biswas, A. Treatment of self-injurious behaviour in children with intellectual disabilities (2008). In Matson, J.L., Andrasik, F. and Matson, M.L. (Eds.), Treating Childhood Psychopathology and Developmental Disabilities. New York: Springer.

Hill, J., Powlitch, S. & Furniss, F. (2008). Convergent validity of the aberrant behavior checklist and behavior problems inventory with people with complex needs. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 29, 45-60.

Smith, K., Powlitch, S., Little, D. & Furniss, F. (2007). Social ecology of a residential special school for young people with challenging behaviours: a preliminary report. Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 20, 99-104.

Garbutt, N. & Furniss, F. (2007). Context sampling descriptive assessment: a pilot study of a further approach to functional assessment. Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 20, 127-130.


Recent conference presentations

McKnight, I., Carter, G., O’Regan, D., Sanderson, K., Saunders, J., Steventon, H. & Furniss, F. (2008). Evaluation of training in positive behavioural support. Invited workshop given at the 2008 International Conference of the National Autistic Society, London.

O’Regan, D., Saunders, J. Sanderson, K. &. Brookfield, A. (2008). A comparison of direct teaching and fluency building in increasing use of signing by support staff for children with learning disabilities. Poster presented at the fourth conference of the European Association for Behaviour Analysis, Madrid.

Furniss, F. (2008). Psychiatric symptomatology and function of challenging behaviour in children with intellectual disabilities. Paper presented to the 13th. World Congress of the International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual Disabilities, Cape Town. Abstracted in Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 52, 731.