The White Paper "Valuing People" [Department of Health (DoH) (2001) "Valuing people: a new strategy for learning disability for the 21st century," London, HMSO] indicates that people with a learning disability need to become more actively involved in the decisions that affect their lives. This includes being offered active choices in access to…

Maintaining therapeutic programmes for people with learning disabilities over long periods of time presents a major challenge to care systems as the limited and slow pace of client behavioural change is often insufficient to sustain staff behaviour. In this study, a 17-year-old young man with profound learning difficulties was successfully…

Background: There is an increase in people with learning disabilities with offending and other disturbed behaviour who are placed in the local community and out of their area of origin. Aims: To compare clients placed locally and out of area. Method: All authorities in an English region were surveyed and interviewed about their clients placed…

This paper describes the findings of a survey into prescribing of psychotropic medication with adults with learning disabilities in a British city. A self-completion questionnaire was sent to staff in dispersed housing and community learning disability teams to gather information about the number of people prescribed psychoactive medication, the…

Participation in leisure activities may contribute to the development of social, motor, and language skills, and is therefore especially important for children with learning disabilities. Leisure activities of students in educational settings are performed mostly during breaks. While there have been some studies of the effect of breaks on…

Despite the rhetoric of involvement of people with learning disabilities in health care there is a dearth of research which examines the extent to which service users are included in evaluating their own care. This paper describes a study of methods for enabling people with learning disabilities and complex health needs to comment on the…

Impacted earwax is extremely common in people with learning disabilities. Although it is not a serious medical condition it causes a number of very unpleasant problems. These symptoms include discomfort in and around the ear, hearing loss, dizziness and noises in the ears. It also causes secondary problems with ear infections and hearing aid use.…

This study investigates 35 students with mild learning disabilities reactions to participating in a research project exploring their sexual knowledge, attitudes and behaviour. Students completed an informed consent procedure prior to their participation in the sexuality research and all were interviewed using a confidential interview procedure.…

We describe a project established in 1990 to assist complainants with learning disabilities in sexual assault cases in Cape Town, South Africa. Complainants are prepared for court and psychologists advise investigating officers and prosecutors, and provide expert testimony. There has been an enormous increase in the utilization of the project by…

Carers' behaviour is thought to contribute to the development and maintenance of challenging behaviour in people with learning disabilities (Emerson et al. 1995; Hastings & Remington 1994). The present study sought to investigate the effectiveness of a behavioural intervention in the management of such problem behaviours by means of a long-term…

A participatory research project was designed to teach eight British adults with learning disabilities about keeping healthy. The development of the project, the recruitment of the participants, and the involvement of the participants in the project are discussed, along with the role of researchers and support workers in participatory research.…

A woman with Down syndrome, who had shown selective mutism for more than 14 years, successfully participated in a program designed to reinforce communication and gradually increase the number of words spoken to one person and then to others. Nonaversive behavior methods were used and response initiative procedures were developed. (Contains…