Communicating with people with learning disabilities
Summary
TLDRThe video script discusses the challenges faced by people with learning disabilities in communication, including comprehension, processing time, expressive language, and articulation. It highlights the importance of the Accessible Communication Standard introduced in 2016, which mandates clear and understandable information for those with learning disabilities. The script also suggests various communication methods such as sign language, pictorial resources, and apps. It advises considering the environment, allowing processing time, speaking slowly, using simple language, avoiding jargon, and employing a total communication approach to ensure effective interaction.
Takeaways
- 🗣️ Communication for people with disabilities can be challenging due to issues with comprehension, processing time, expressive language, or articulation.
- 🧐 People often overestimate or underestimate the communicative abilities of individuals with disabilities, leading to misunderstandings.
- 📈 In 2016, the Accessible Communication Standard was introduced to ensure that healthcare services provide information in an understandable way for people with disabilities.
- 🏥 The standard applies to various healthcare professionals, including doctors, pharmacists, and social workers.
- 🤔 Communication methods for individuals with disabilities include sign language, objects of reference, pictorial resources, iPad apps, and interpreting body language.
- 👂 Consider the environment when communicating, ensuring good lighting, reduced noise, and appropriate distance for visual cues.
- ⏱️ Allow processing time for individuals with learning disabilities, as they may take longer to understand and respond to information.
- 🗣️ Speak slowly and clearly, emphasizing key words, to accommodate extended processing times.
- 🔎 Use simple and short language, avoiding medical jargon and considering the context of words to prevent misunderstandings.
- 💡 Be aware that abstract or metaphorical language can be confusing; use literal language instead.
- 📚 Adopt a total communication approach, utilizing various methods such as writing, drawing, signing, and physical objects to enhance understanding.
Q & A
What is the basic definition of communication?
-Communication is the exchange of information from one person to another using any means possible.
Why might people with disabilities have difficulty with communication?
-People with disabilities might have difficulty with comprehension, processing time, expressive language, or articulation, which can affect their communication abilities.
How can people's communicative abilities be misjudged?
-Communicative abilities can be overestimated or underestimated based on physical impairments or verbal abilities, leading to incorrect assumptions about comprehension.
What is the Accessible Communication Standard introduced in 2016?
-The Accessible Communication Standard outlines that all health and social care services should provide information in an easy-to-understand way for people with learning disabilities, impairments, or sensory losses, and it should be followed by law.
What is the goal of the Accessible Communication Standard?
-The goal is to ensure better outcomes and experiences for people with learning disabilities and to make sure everyone understands what's involved in their health.
What are some communication methods that people with disabilities might use?
-Methods include Makaton sign language, objects of reference, pictorial resources, iPad apps, interactive devices, and interpreting body language, gestures, and facial expressions.
Why is considering the environment important when communicating with people with disabilities?
-It's important to ensure the environment is well-lit, has reduced background noise, and allows for clear visibility of facial cues to accommodate for hearing and visual impairments.
How can allowing processing time benefit people with learning disabilities?
-Allowing processing time gives people with learning disabilities the space to understand and respond to information, preventing misinterpretations of their abilities.
What is the recommended speaking pace and style when communicating with people who have extended processing time?
-Speaking in a slow and steady pace, emphasizing key words, and keeping language simple and short is beneficial.
Why is it important to use literal language instead of abstract or metaphoric language?
-People with learning disabilities might take abstract or metaphoric language literally, leading to misunderstandings, so using literal language helps ensure clarity.
What is a total communication approach and why is it important?
-A total communication approach involves considering all possible ways to communicate a message, such as writing, drawing, signing, or using physical objects, to promote understanding for the individual.
Outlines
🗣️ Communication Challenges and Accessibility
This paragraph discusses the concept of communication, particularly focusing on the challenges faced by individuals with disabilities. It highlights the potential difficulties in comprehension, processing, expressive language, and articulation. The paragraph emphasizes that these abilities are often misjudged, leading to either overestimation or underestimation of a person's communication skills. It also mentions the introduction of the Accessible Communication Standard in 2016, which mandates that health and social care services provide information in an accessible manner for those with learning disabilities, impairments, or sensory losses. The standard aims to improve service outcomes and experiences for individuals with learning disabilities and to ensure clear understanding of health-related matters. The paragraph concludes with various communication methods that can be employed by individuals with disabilities, such as Makaton sign language, objects of reference, pictorial resources, iPad apps, and interpreting body language and facial expressions.
👥 Enhancing Communication with Learning Disabilities
The second paragraph provides practical advice on how to communicate effectively with individuals who have learning disabilities. It suggests considering the environment by ensuring good lighting, reducing background noise, and maintaining an appropriate distance for non-verbal cues. The paragraph advises allowing processing time for individuals who may take longer to understand and respond to information. It also recommends speaking slowly and clearly, emphasizing key words, and using simple, everyday language to avoid medical jargon and context-specific terms that might be misunderstood. The paragraph concludes by advocating for a total communication approach, which involves using various methods such as writing, drawing, signing, and using physical objects to facilitate understanding.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Communication
💡Learning Disabilities
💡Expressive Language
💡Articulation
💡Accessible Communication Standard
💡Makaton
💡Objects of Reference
💡Pictorial Resources
💡Processing Time
💡Total Communication Approach
💡Context-Specific Language
Highlights
Communication is defined as the exchange of information using any means possible.
People with disabilities may have difficulty with comprehension, processing time, or expressive language.
Communicative abilities are often overestimated or underestimated.
Physical impairments might lead to assumptions about a person's comprehension abilities.
People who speak verbally might be overestimated if their comprehension is limited.
The Accessible Communication Standard was introduced in 2016 to ensure clear communication in health and social care services.
The standard aims to improve outcomes and experiences for people with learning disabilities.
Communication methods for people with disabilities include Makaton sign language and objects of reference.
Pictorial resources and iPad apps are used to aid communication.
Interpreting body language, gestures, and facial expressions is important.
Consider the environment for people with hearing and visual impairments.
Ensure the environment is well-lit and reduce background noise.
Allow processing time for people with learning disabilities.
Speak in a slow and steady pace, emphasizing key words.
Use simple and short language, avoiding medical jargon.
Be aware that words can be context-specific and have different meanings.
Avoid abstract phrases or metaphoric language; use literal language instead.
Adopt a total communication approach, using various methods to convey messages.
Have pen and paper available to write down or draw messages.
Transcripts
communication in its simplest definition
is the exchange of information from one
person to another are using any means
possible people have learned
disabilities will have difficulty with
some form of communication whether
that's a difficulty with comprehension
so that's their understanding of a word
or message whether it's their processing
time being more delayed or taking them
longer to remember and store what has
been said whether that's a difficulty
with their expressive language so that's
how somebody expresses themselves and
formulates a word or sentence or whether
that's a problem with their articulation
so they were thinking about the
individual speech sounds so somebody
might speak but it would be
unintelligible or sound slurred or
slightly disordered their communicative
abilities are often either overestimated
or underestimated and so an example
might be that somebody might have a
physical impairment so therefore their
speech is slightly slurred or disordered
and so somebody might assume that their
comprehensive ability is also impaired
so they might be underestimated
and alternatively somebody might speak
verbally and appear very able however
their comprehension might be limited so
therefore they might be overestimated
and both of these situations have a
negative consequence on somebody's
motivation to communicate with health
care professionals and can also cause
communication breakdown along the way so
in 2016 the government introduced the
accessible communication standard which
outlines that all health and social care
services should be providing information
in a way that's easy for people to
understand that have learning
disabilities impairments or sensory
losses and this should be followed by
law and it aims to make services have
better outcomes and experiences for
people learn disabilities and make sure
that everybody understands what's
involved in their health
and this applies to doctors pharmacies
hospitals social workers and anybody in
that field communication methods that
people with their disabilities might use
are Makaton sign language which is
signing whilst you speak objects of
reference which is using physical
objects to represent an idea or concept
using pictorial resources such as
photographs or symbols to help
communicate and understand also using
iPads there's lots of apps you can get
available now for communication and also
interactive devices and and also
interpreting things like body language
gesture and facial expression firstly I
would say to consider your environment
so people own disabilities are more
likely to have hearing and visual
impairments and so I guess it's making
sure that your environment is well-lit
that you've reduced background noise and
that you're sitting at an appropriate
distance for somebody to be able to see
your face clearly and read those extra
cues that you might give with your face
and if they have got a hearing or visual
impairment if they do have glasses or
hearing aids making sure that they're
clean and that they're turned on and
also regularly reviewed secondly
allowing some processing time so people
of learning disabilities may take longer
to process the information so it's about
making sure that you're giving that
space for somebody to process the
information but also to respond and so
ensuring that if somebody hasn't
responded
you're not straightaway repeating the
message you're allowing that time and
not assuming that they haven't heard you
or misunderstood you but they might
actually still be processing what you
said
Janee so for people with learning
disabilities with that extended
processing time it's going to take them
longer to register your message so
speaking in a slow and steady pace and
emphasizing the key words in the
center's will be really beneficial keep
your language simple and short so when
you're speaking and sense of things
making sure that they're concise and
very clear your choice of language
should be everyday words as opposed to
medical jargon or terminology an
important thing to consider is that
words can be context specific as well so
something that you might use everyday in
the hospital might have a different
meaning for somebody with a learning
disability that hasn't applied it to a
different context so an example could be
if he was saying we're about to go into
theater in a hospital that would mean
that you're going in for an operation
but for someone with an any disability
their understanding of the word later
might be going to see a Western show and
so it's very important to make sure
we're being very clear and direct with
the words that we're using
and considering the other meanings that
they might have for that person so often
we use abstract phrases or metaphoric
language in our speech and for example
the doctors doing his rounds or you've
been through the wars or tournament
terminology like that and for people
with learning disabilities they might
take that literally and so it's
important that we instead use literal
language instead of more abstract themes
lastly using a total communication
approach so thinking of all of the
different ways that you can communicate
that message to the person having a pen
and paper available writing it down
drawing it signing it getting the
physical object and showing somebody
really thinking outside the box of all
the different ways that we can promote
understanding for the individual
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