Support persons' views on remote communication and social media for people with communicative and cognitive disabilities.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore support persons' views on remote communication for persons with communicative and cognitive disabilities, and on factors enabling self-determination and participation.Materials and methods: Five focus groups with 21 support persons were conducted. They were recorded and transcribed and data were analyzed qualitatively using focus group analysis methodology.Results: The participants experience how remote communication can enable users to have increased control in their lives and how remote communication can enable self-determination and participation. Access to remote communication has a dual effect on safety. There are experiences about communicative rights of the users not being met and there is a need for better access to technology, information, and experts. There is also a need for more competence and coordination among staff and support to the users. Challenges emerge in the support persons' dedication to the users' right to communicate.Conclusion: People with communicative and cognitive disabilities need access to remote communication in order to have control over their own lives and to achieve self-determination and participation in society. Support persons carry a large responsibility and can provide valuable insights of users' communication situation.Implications for rehabilitationRemote communication is important for safety; it is necessary to be able to call for help independently.To ensure the communicative rights of people with communicative and cognitive difficulties, professionals must provide assessments of standard technology or assistive technology for remote communication.There is a need for more support to and education of staff from the professions. The users themselves are also in need of long-term support.Support persons face ethical dilemmas regarding user safety on social media and internet and need guidelines and support.

"That is how I speak nowadays" - experiences of remote communication among persons with communicative and cognitive disabilities.

PURPOSE: The aim of the study was to explore the experiences of remote communication (i.e., communication between persons who are not in the same place) among people with communicative and cognitive disabilities. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Eleven adolescents and adults were interviewed using Talking Mats and interview data was analyzed qualitatively with systematic text condensation. RESULTS: The use of remote communication varies between the participants. The participants also value remote communication differently. Having the possibility to choose between different means of remote communication is important. Being able to determine whether to communicate independently or with support from another person is also valued as relevant. Strategies used to manage remote communication include facilitating for the communication partner and preparing for future communication situations. Those who are able to use writing as an alternative to problematic spoken remote communication like phone calls, for example by using chat or text messaging. Decisions regarding means of communication and human support relate to the concept of self-determination. CONCLUSION: Better access to remote communication trough assistive technology such as speech synthesis and picture symbols would make remote communication easier and facilitate participation for people with communicative and cognitive disabilities. Implications for rehabilitation People with communicative and cognitive disabilities face challenges with access to remote communication. Access to communication technology including remote communication is important for self-determination, for personal safety and for overall participation in society. Communication technology should be considered in the rehabilitation process and training is crucial. To understand the possible benefits of remote communication, people with communicative and cognitive disability need to get the possibility to practice. Professionals play a key role in the assessment and intervention of remote communication for their patients.

Strategies that assist children with communicative disability during hospital stay: Parents' perceptions and ideas.

There is a lack of research on the use of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) in paediatric care, despite the fact that most children in need of AAC frequently need to visit hospitals and sometimes have to stay for long periods. The aim of this study was to investigate parents' experiences of the hospital visits with their children with communicative disabilities and to collect their ideas about how to optimize communication in this situation. Ten parents who had children with communicative disability took part in three focus group interviews. The analysis had a retrospective qualitative content theory. In the qualitative content analysis of the focus group interviews, 4 categories and 17 subcategories were identified. Overall, the results highlighted the importance of enabling direct communication between the child and the staff during the hospital stay. Parents of children with communication difficulties highlighted the importance of listening to their children and understanding their needs during hospital care and that hospital staff are in need of more knowledge in communicative disability and AAC to accomplish this. Training programmes for health-care professionals should be established to facilitate these requirements and connect to the United Nations conventions. Hospitals should provide and use AAC/communicative support.

Assessing Children's Anxiety Using the Modified Short State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and Talking Mats: A Pilot Study.

Background. Preoperative anxiety complicates treatment and requires assessment by nurses in children. Children, with or without disability, are helped when pictures are used to support communication. The purpose of this pilot study was to test the reliability and validity of the modified short State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) using a modified Talking Mats method in children undergoing day surgeries. Method. A modified short STAI with pictorial support along the lines of the Talking Mats method was pre- and postoperatively administered to 42 typically developing children aged three to nine years. The parents assessed the children's anxiety, simultaneously and independently, by scoring the short STAI by proxy. Results. The modified short STAI showed moderate internal consistency and good construct validity in the age group seven to nine years. Conclusions. The results of this study support the use of the instrument for self-reports in children aged seven to nine years. Future research will explore the possibilities of also using this instrument for children with cognitive and communicative difficulties.

Speech recognition and dysarthria: a single subject study of two individuals with profound impairment of speech and motor control.

This study investigated the use of the speech recognition system Dragon Dictate as an augmentative method of computer access for two individuals with cerebral palsy, including severe motor dysfunction and dysarthria. Single subject design was used and measures of computer access system effectiveness and speech production were used before, during and after intervention. The users' original switch access system was compared to a combination of their switch access system and speech recognition, by counting the number of correct entries. Adding speech recognition increased the number of correct entries by 40% for one of the participants. The other participant did not complete the intervention protocol. An independent judge rated speech production. No changes in speech were observed. Dragon Dictate is time-consuming to learn and demands a high level of motivation, but can be beneficial to a person who has profound dysarthria and great difficulties in accessing the computer.