Introduction  People with intellectual disabilities are now acknowledged to be susceptible to the full range of mental health disorders. This acknowledgement has resulted in the need to develop and evaluate instruments for the assessment and detection of mental health problems. This research evaluates the use of the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) with 200 people with mild intellectual disabilities representing community, clinical and forensic populations. Results and conclusions  Results illustrate the reliability of the BSI for each of the groups and demonstrates how the Positive Symptom Total (PST) index effectively discriminates between study groups. Case rates for each group are provided. The study illustrates that the BSI could be employed as a brief multitrait assessment instrument and as a treatment outcome measure with people with an intellectual disability.

Emotional development is considered from a theoretical standpoint of normal development and applied to people with mental handicaps. Individual cases are described and the treatment they received. Implications for care models, education and further research are discussed.

This paper summarises the main areas of therapeutic developments in recent years in the field of learning disability. There has been a growing interest in alternative ways of helping learning‐disabled people live with themselves and the world in a socially acceptable way. Most such approaches are person‐centred, even if provided in a group setting. The range and types of therapies are illustrated and the advances in humanistic approaches highlighted. Cognitive, psychodynamic and creative therapies have been added to behaviour therapy, with good results, indicating the potential of learning‐disabled people to benefit from the same sorts of therapy as other people.

Purpose -This paper demonstrates that it is both possible and useful to measure the emotional developmental stage of people with intellectual disability. Design/methodology/approach -A tool was designed, based on a stage theory of development and tested for reliability and validity. Findings -The tool was found to be both reliable and valid. Originality/value -This is new work with no predecessor.Keywords Measurement, Emotional development Paper type Research paperAfter a long period of expecting behavioural approaches to solve all behavioural problems, there is now a growing recognition that feelings and emotional trauma may underpin behavioural disturbance (Royal College of Psychiatrist, 2004;Jahoda et al., 2001). There is, therefore, a need for an assessment of emotional development that can define and inform therapeutic interventions as well as measure change over time.Behavioural assessments tend to be based on frequency and severity of behaviours labelled as maladaptive for the individual, or the setting in which they live. The purpose of the assessment is to identify the behaviour, the antecedents and consequences, then design an intervention to eradicate or modify the behaviour. These behaviours can be very severe in nature, often involving harm to self or others. Behaviours that are frequent and not too severe, e.g. persistent touching, respond quite well to this sort of intervention. However, behaviours that are low frequency but high intensity are less amenable because there are fewer opportunities to intervene and the consequences of the behaviour could be severe. Individuals with the second pattern may find themselves escalating through services to secure provision because of the severity of what they do. However, usually without an appropriate intervention because of the difficulties of implementing a reinforcement or reward schedule. Some cognitive behavioural treatments are becoming more widely used with people with mild intellectual disability (ID) with some success (Nicoll et al., 2013). However, there is still a complex group for whom cognitive or behavioural approaches have limited usefulness. They frequently find themselves stuck in the secure system, usually because their behaviour is not understood. The emotional component would appear to be the missing link in understanding the meaning of the behaviours and possible intervention.High-frequency -low-intensity behaviours, i.e. those that cause irritation rather than fear, lend themselves better to behavioural interventions in segregated environments (Sturmey, 2008). The ability to engage in such an intervention depends on the skill of the staff group and the motivation of the service-user. It is notable that people who remain in residential services for long periods usually exhibit these types of behaviours. They are still prevented, by their behaviour, PAGE 272 j