Learning disabilitiesNicola Davies' care of people with learning disabilities improved after reading a learning zone article

摘要

As a person-centred planning facilitator at Mencap, my role is to support adults with learning disabilities. This includes identifying their health needs and aiding their communication with health professionals.This article outlined some of the difficulties encountered by people with learning disabilities and provided strategies to improve communication.I have observed poor communication between healthcare professionals and people with learning disabilities. Once, when supporting a client having an eye test, I had to inform the optician to give my client time to read the letters. To speed up the process the optician was reading out the letters to my client, who was capable of expressing himself if the time was taken to listen.On accompanying my client to the dentist, I had to ask the health professional to talk to the client rather than me.These situations helped me to identify areas for change and the article provided information to support these changes.