People with learning disabilities may face a number of challenges in the area of sexuality, including lack of access to information, fewer sexual experiences, negative attitudes and more experience of sexual abuse. To begin to address some of these issues, a number of sex education programmes have been developed by professionals. This study from the [read the full story…]
Whilst there has been significant progress in recent years in acknowledging the rights of people with learning disabilities to live their lives in the way they choose, responding to the right to be sexually active continues to throw up challenges for services and families. Part of the difficulty is that people with learning disabilities may [read the full story…]
Friendships and relationships are usually the things that most people will say are important to them in describing their quality of life. Many people with learning disabilities however have very limited opportunities to meet and make friends. The people in their social networks may be family members, or people who are paid to support them. [read the full story…]
Sexuality in adults with learning disabilities is a subject that has only relatively recently been tackled in the literature. The researchers in this study were interested in sexuality in adolescents, and wanted to look at the attitudes and behaviours of mothers of adolescents and consider whether or not the presence of learning disability might affect [read the full story…]
National policy in the UK regarding supporting people with learning disabilities has focused on personalising support, improving social inclusion and the removal of obstacles relating to access to education, employment, healthcare and housing. The authors of the current study suggest that there has been significant progress in these areas, but when looking at the area [read the full story…]
This review of the literature set out to summarise the current status of knowledge and clinical practice in the area of relationships and sexuality for people with learning disabilities, which the review authors describe as an area that is complex and challenging. Services for people with learning disabilities have undergone a move towards personalisation, person-centred [read the full story…]
There is limited research into homosexuality and people with learning disabilities (see for example Norah Fry Centre project. What literature there is has identified low levels of knowledge, homophobic attitudes and negative experiences. The researchers in this study looked at attitudes towards homosexuality and gender role beliefs in a group 27 of women with learning [read the full story…]
