In 2006, the Department of Health produced a report called ‘Let Me I’m a Researcher’, which was designed to inform the debate about best practice in working with people with disabilities to co-produce topic areas, aims, objectives and approaches in research that involved them. Involving people with learning disabilities in the production and delivery of research [read the full story…]
Previous research has suggested that the likelihood of experiencing mental health problems is increased in children and young people with learning disabilities if they also have autism. The researchers in this study were interested in looking at symptoms of anxiety in this population, hypothesising that they may experience symptoms of anxiety at a greater level [read the full story…]
Poor health in people with learning disabilities is associated with a number of risk factors, one of which is the lower likelihood of getting timely access to screening services. Previous studies have shown that women with learning disabilities are less likely than those without disabilities to have access to cervical and breast cancer screening services [read the full story…]
Physical interventions are still widely used in learning disability services, with BILD estimating their use in around half of all people with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour. The experience of people with learning disabilities of such interventions is not something that has been reported widely in the literature, but the researchers in this study set [read the full story…]
One of the key findings of the early research into community services for people with learning disabilities who had lived in long stay institutions, was that the quality of first line management was one of the main factors affecting outcomes. This Australian study set out to look at the work of front-line managers in supported [read the full story…]
We have posted previously about the use of physical interventions in services supporting people with learning disabilities, drawing attention to the high levels of use in people described as having challenging behaviour. The researchers in this study in the Netherlands set out to look at the antecedent factors of restraint in people with learning disabilities [read the full story…]
Positive behavioural support (PBS) recognises the importance of understanding the basis of why someone is exhibiting a behaviour that is challenging, and that there is a need to consider both proactive and reactive strategies in developing interventions. There has been a good deal reported in the literature about the training needs of paid carers in this [read the full story…]
The Autism Strategy Fulfilling and Rewarding Lives was published in 2010. The strategy is for England only, but the authors of this general review suggest that a detailed look at the strategy will be of interest across the UK. The strategy was published following a commitment made in the Autism Act 2009. It sets out [read the full story…]
We have posted many times about the issue of overweight and obesity in people with learning disabilities. This study in France set out look at health-related fitness in adolescents with learning disabilities and to analyse various performances in physical fitness tests according to degrees of obesity in that poopulation. The researchers worked with 87 French [read the full story…]
Erotomania, sometimes known as ‘de Clerambault’s syndrome’ is a rare disorder, classified under the group of delusional disorders, where a person wrongly believes another person is in love with them. The object of the delusion is often a person of higher social status. The person with the disorder will make advances to the object of [read the full story…]
