How does architecture contribute to reducing behaviours that challenge? A scoping review

Abstract

Background: Behaviours that challenge might prevent intellectually impaired individuals from experiencing a good quality of life (QoL). These behaviours arise in interaction with the environment and can be positively or negatively affected by architecture.

Aim: This scoping review explores how architecture contributes to the QoL of individuals engaging in such behaviours. It aims to identify possible gaps in the existing literature and map areas of future research.

Method: Four databases were searched using four concepts: architecture, intellectual impairment, challenging behaviour, and QoL. Since only one source covered all concepts, the search criteria were widened to include sources integrating only two or three concepts, nonpeer-reviewed sources, and autism. Eighteen papers, were analysed in terms of their contribution to relations between QoL, behaviours that challenge, and architecture.

Results: This review shows that architecture, QoL, intellectual impairment, and behaviours that challenge have not yet been studied jointly.

Conclusions: The contribution of architecture to the QoL of these individuals should be subject of future research, together with the similarities and differences between their needs and those of individuals with autism.

Keywords: Architecture; Built environment; Challenging behaviour; Intellectual impairment; Quality of life.