This preliminary study explores the relationships between challenging behaviour and emotional perception in a population of adults with intellectual disabilities, in order to establish whether there are grounds for further study. Cross-sectional data were collected from 96 participants with intellectual disabilities and 95 carers. The service user participants completed the Emotional Perception Questionnaire, whilst carers completed the Checklist for Challenging Behaviour. Correlational analyses were employed to analyse relationships between the variables. A post hoc between-group analysis was conducted to compare the emotional recognition abilities of people with high-frequency challenging behaviour with those with low-frequency challenging behaviour. Significant negative associations were found between emotional perception and challenging behaviour frequency and management difficulty. Significant differences in emotional perception abilities were found between people with high frequency and those with low-frequency challenging behaviours. The study suggests that emotional perception is important in understanding challenging behaviour.