The past few years has seen the publication of a number of national reports which have highlighted the often poor response to people with learning disabilities by health services, (‘Death by Indifference’, ‘Healthcare for all’ ‘Six Lives’ investigation) which led to a number of key recommendations for improvement, including the need for reasonable adjustments in [read the full story…]
The health inequalities of people with learning disabilities are well documented in the literature, with increased risks for many physical and sensory health issues as well as mental health issues and responses from health services have often been poor, as documented in the Michael Report. In recent years, the healthcare pathways approach has been introduced [read the full story…]
Background Communication is a fundamental right, but as the BILD Communication factsheet states, communication difficulties affect anywhere between 50% and 90% of people with learning disabilities. This factsheet also suggests that about 20% of people with learning disabilities may have no verbal communication skills but that they do demonstrate a will to communicate, and show [read the full story…]
The recent publication of Raising Our Sights, the DH report into support for people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities set out a challenge for everyone concerned with understanding and responding to people with such disabilities. A number of projects have produced practical guides for involving and engaging with people, for example, Mencap’s Involve Me [read the full story…]
BILD’s communication factsheet suggests that estimates of the proportion of people with learning disabilities who have difficulties with communication vary between 50% and 90%. For many people with learning disabilities, this communication will be non-verbal, or working at a pre-lingual level, which mean the use of many means including gesture, facial expression, sign language, picture [read the full story…]
We have posted previously about the challenges faced by people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities in communication and the ways in which those who support them might use a variety of tools to improve this. Researchers have asked whether it might be possible to look at changes in physiology to provide information on emotions [read the full story…]
One outcome measure of forensic services is the rate of re-offending. The author of this review was interested in this outcome, but in particular the contribution to this of speech and language therapy services. The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists recommend the involvement of speech and language therapy intervention in support to people [read the full story…]
Supporting people with profound learning disabilities creates a communication challenge for those in the supporting role raising the question of how best to understand and respond when people do not use words to communicate. We have posted previously about resources available to help with this issue, for example national projects like Mencap’s Involve Me as [read the full story…]
We have posted previously about the evidence relating to support for parents with learning disabilities , with studies suggesting that whilst parents with learning disabilities may experience poorer psychological well-being than parents in the general population, there is evidence that improvements in psychological well-being can be made through improvements in social support. The researcher in [read the full story…]
Difficulties experienced by people with learning disabilities with communication can impact greatly on their ability to have control over their lives. Problems can be with receptive, expressive, or written domains. The researchers in the present study set out to look specifically at the communication difficulties faced by 204 people described as having profound learning disabilities [read the full story…]
