Inclusive Communication How can I effectively communicate when a person has a developmental disabili

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Inclusive CommunicationHow can I effectively
communicate when a person has a developmental
disability?

• The Missouri Adult Protective Services Conference
• November 29, 2007

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Goals of this session

• At the conclusion of this session, you will
• be familiar with the basic model for
  communication which can be used in any
  communication situation
• be able to use the basic communication model
• be able to adapt your communication style to meet
  the needs of people with disability

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My assumption

• You know how to do your jobinterview people
  investigate effectively communicate. This
  session is designed to give you some information
  and pointers which will enhance your repertoire
  of communication tools so you are able to work
  with a wider range of people.

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Introduction

• How can I effectively communicate with a person
  with a developmental disability?
• Why are you asking this question?
• Why is effective communication important in your
  work?
• What constitutes effective communication?

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• Key Principle 1
• People with disabilities are people first.

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What is a developmental disability?

• System perspective
• Community/social perspective
• Personal perspective

• Definition
• Deficiency focus
• Program eligibility
• diagnostics
• Attitudes beliefs
• Roles
• Status
• contributions
• My life as I live it
• Interests, gifts talents
• Hopes and dreams
• Control of my life and destiny

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Federal definition from the Developmental
Disability Act

• Physical or mental impairments that begin before
  age 22, and alter or substantially inhibit a
  persons capacity to do at least three of the
  following
• take care of themselves
• speak and be clearly understood
• learn
• walk/ move around
• make decisions
• live on their own
• earn and manage an income

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Examples of developmental disability

• People with autism
• Folks with cerebral palsy
• Someone who has had a traumatic brain injury
• A person with hearing impairment
• Other examples?

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Caution!!

• A disability is only one characteristic of the
  person (dont let the disability be life defining
• How a disability presents itself varies from
  person to person (dont over generalize from the
  disability label
• Distinguish the person with a disability from the
  impairment

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Social Perspectives

• Acceptance
• Roles relationships
• Friend
• Neighbor
• Co-worker
• Spouse
• Church member

• Rejection
• Target for ridicule, abuse, personal gain
• Recipient of charity pity
• Cause of fear/anxiety
• Isolation segregation

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Personal perspective

• We are people first!
• We want
• Opportunity
• Choice
• Competence
• Control
• A life

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Key Principle 2

• Effective communication with someone who happens
  to have a disability begins with using effective
  communication strategies.

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Elements of Communication
sender
receiver
message
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Effective Communication Skills
Active Listening
Initiating
Responding
Process
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Initiating Skills

• Starting communication (Proposing)
• Introduces a new idea,
• suggestion or proposal is
• actionable
• Adding on to an idea (Expanding)
• Enlarges, extends or develops
• an existing proposal

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Ways of Responding

• Agreeing ? actively supports a persons idea or
  suggestion
• Disagreeing ? expresses a lack of support or
  agreement
• Attacking ? attacks another person directly
• Defending ? attempt to ward off an attack,
  whether real or perceived

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Ways of Responding

• Positive responses
• Agreeing ? actively supports a persons idea or
  suggestion
• Disagreeing ? expresses a lack of support or
  agreement

• Negative responses
• Attacking ? attacks another person directly
• Defending ? attempt to ward off an attack,
  whether real or perceived

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Active Listening Skills

• Giving information? the sender provides facts,
  opinions or thoughts
• Seeking information? sender asks questions to
  clarify information or collect more information
• Reflecting? receiver seeks to identify the
  emotion of the sender on the basis of non-verbal
  information
• Checking in? receiver seeks to determine if an
  earlier communication has been perceived
  accurately
• Summarizing? receiver recounts in compact form
  previous communication

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Process Skills

• Bringing in?
• Solicits participation from a person present, but
  not verbally contributing
• Shutting out?
• Excludes a persons participation by seeking to
  stop their participation
• The goal in effective communication is to achieve
  a balance across participants

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Tips on Listening and Asking Questions

• Listen first, then talk
• Give the person a chance to speak before you ask
  questions
• Dont assume, second guess or jump to conclusions
• Provide comments or suggestions if invited after
  the other person is finished
• Seek to separate emotional accusations or
  statements from the facts

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More Tips...

• Dont react to an attack with another attack
• be attentive maintain eye contact with the
  speaker
• use verbal reactions to indicate listening
• be relaxed and prepared to invest time to hear
  the whole story

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Possible breakdowns in the communication process
the senders perspective

• Physical articulation
• Formulating the message (figuring out what to
  say)
• Clearly expressing the message (conveying the
  info so receiver understands)

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Possible breakdowns the receivers perspective

• Literally hearing the message
• Understanding the content of the message
• Processing the message

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Possible breakdowns the message

• Lack of a commonly understood vocabulary syntax
• Difficulty placing the message in context
• Does the medium of the message work for both
  parties?

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Key Principle 3

• Effective communication means tailoring your
  approach for each individual and the particular
  situation.

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Tailoring the process

• If the person has a physical disability
• If the person has a vision impairment
• If the person has a hearing disability
• What about a speech disability?
• If there is a cognitive disability
• What if the person uses non-symbolic forms of
  communication?

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Key Principle 4

• Everyone communicates!

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Symbolic v. non-symbolic communication forms

• Symbolic
• Abstract representations of reality
• Socially agreed upon vocabulary syntax
• Specificity

• Non-symbolic
• More concrete
• Pictures
• Gestures
• Body language
• More individually defined vocabulary
• More difficult to interpret

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Key principle 5

• Improving our ability to communicate
  inclusively takes practice.

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Some ideas which might help improve inclusive
communication

• Ask people you interview for feedback, e.g., is
  our interview going OK so far?
• work with a partner so you can get feedback
• use opportunities to improve your skills, rather
  than avoiding them
• spend time with people with disabilities
• get and use information

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• Listen with an
• intensity that
• most people save
• for talking.