R. Mcconkey et al., Communications between staff and adults with intellectual disabilities in naturally occurring settings, J INTEL DIS, 43, 1999, pp. 194-205
Videotapes were made of 43 staff-client dyads in small-scale residential an
d day service settings. Frequency counts were made of carers' communicative
acts, and two experienced speech and language therapists rated these for a
ppropriateness. Recommendations for enhancing communication were also noted
. The results showed that clients were presented with few opportunities to
engage as equal partners in the conversational interchanges: staff overly r
elied on verbal acts, even when they were communicating with predominantly
non-verbal clients; they tended to favour the use of directives and questio
ns, and the majority of staff failed to adjust their language to the client
's level of understanding. The most commonly recommended changes for staff
were to use simpler sentences and words, to increase their use of non-verba
l signals and open questions, to provide more opportunities for clients to
initiate topics, and to increase their responsiveness to client's non-verba
l signals. The explanations for staff behaviour are reviewed and the implic
ations for changing practice are discussed.