Social psychological models of reasoned action, and behavioural models of verbal behaviour, predict that caregiver beliefs and attributions partially determine their responses to challenging behaviours. The present study examined the relationship between special educators’ causal attributions and the underlying function of challenging behaviours in children with learning disabilities. Sixty special school staff were presented with two questionnaire vignettes describing attention seeking and task avoidance behaviour. They were then asked to identify the likely causes of the behaviours. Only a small proportion of participants made accurate causal attributions about the two examples of challenging behaviour. In addition, staff experience had little effect on the accuracy of attributions. Implications for future research, for staff training, and analysis of challenging behaviours are discussed.