Assessment of anger in people with intellectual disabilities

This paper examines the link between a self-report Anger Inventory (Benson & Ivins, 1992) and incidents of challenging behaviour by people with intellectual disabilities. Records of challenging behaviour were kept by significant others while the people with intellectual disabilities themselves were asked to complete the Anger Inventory on a number of different occasions. The inventory was used to evaluate and follow up the impact of an anger management group, and in some cases other associated interventions. Data are presented on five individuals for time periods of between two and three years. Visual inspection of the data suggests a degree of correspondence between the levels of challenging behaviour reported by staff and scores reported on the Anger Inventory by participants and this relationship is confirmed statistically. The implications of these results are discussed.