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…]
There is a wide literature on support for people with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour, and studies looking at staff attitudes and attributions form a part of this. These studies have looked at inconsistencies in responses, the impact of specific attributions on helping behaviour etc. The authors of this current study acknowledge the contribution of [read the full story…]
In recent years, a number of studies have begun to explore bereavement and grief in people with learning disabilities. Hollins and Esterhuyzen (1997) for example in the late 1990s reported the results of a matched control group study into the reaction of people with learning disabilities to bereavement, which found highly significant differences significant differences [read the full story…]
Talk to any manager who leads a team supporting people with learning disabilities and ask about what are the key features impacting on performance and the conversation will turn to team culture. However, clearly defining culture in way that is amenable to study in research has a number of difficulties and so whilst it recurs [read the full story…]
People with Down syndrome are more likely to develop dementia than those without and indeed this is more likely to occur at an earlier age, where clinical symptoms can occur when people are in their late 40s or early 50s. There is also some evidence that there are some differences in clinical symptoms in people [read the full story…]
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 as set out in the relevant clinical guidelines. The team at Improving Health and Lives, the learning disabilities public health observatory (LDPHO) reported that reasonable adjustments were not being made [read the full story…]
Last week, we featured a guest blog from our sister site the Mental Elf which looked at the findings of a study based on the British Crime Survey which found that people with disability are at increased risk of being victims of domestic and non-domestic violence and suggested the need for an urgent assessment national [read the full story…]
The Confidential Inquiry into premature deaths in people with learning disabilities (CIPOLD) was commissioned by the Secretary of State for Health as a result of a recommendation by Jonathan Michael in ‘Healthcare for All’ the report of the Independent Inquiry into access to healthcare for people with learning disabilities. The Confidential Inquiry team were charged [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…]
Short breaks offer a way for people with disabilities and their family carers to take a break from each other. For the person supported, they offer an opportunity to be away from home and for family carers an opportunity to recharge depleted batteries. In 2003, Mencap surveyed seventy six families from across England and Northern [read the full story…]
