This USA based meta-analysis looked at the association between parenting and outcomes for children with developmental disabilities. The authors point out that despite there being an extensive literature supporting the positive relationship between positive parenting and child outcomes for typically developing children, there has been little work to analyse the literature specific to children with [read the full story…]
A couple of years ago, I was involved in some work commissioned by the General Medical Council to create a website for doctors to help them to understand their duties under GMC guidance. Amongst the many striking things about this work was some video on the site taken of some doctors in training, attending a session [read the full story…]
Annual health checks for people with learning disabilities were introduced as part of the introduction of a Direct Enhanced Service in England in 2008. Although researchers have found that despite such a clear policy framework, in 2009/2010 only 41% of people who were eligible for a health check received one. Reviews of the literature have [read the full story…]
We have posted a number of times about the healthcare needs of people with learning disabilities and in particular the responses of the healthcare services. Recently, the results of the Confidential Inquiry into Premature Deaths of People with Learning Disabilities was published which found that men with learning disabilities died on average 13 years earlier [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…]
As you know here at Elf towers, we are committed to bringing you the evidence, so that you can make informed decisions about practice. However I hope you’ll forgive a slight deviation from this aim this Friday, as we bring to your attention the publication of yet another report that highlights poor NHS care. On [read the full story…]
Quality of life is becoming a common outcome in the reporting of trials. The authors of this literature review were interested to look systematically at the use of quality life as an outcome in pharmacological research on Autism Spectrum Disorders. Currently, the most frequently used outcome measures in such trials are measures of changes in [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…]
We have posted before about the use of assistive technology and in particular telecare. This week sees the publication of a new report from the Voluntary Organisations Disability Group (VODG) and the National Care Forum (NCF) which describes a number of projects which offer technological solutions to enhance personalisation. The Department of Health has defined [read the full story…]
We recently posted about the findings of a review of the literature relating to orofacial regulation therapy which concluded that whilst the results of published studies inferred significant positive impacts, there was a need for larger multi-centre research to produce more statistically significant and valid results. Given these findings, this paper looked in more detail [read the full story…]
