Participation in daily life for adults with profound intellectual (and multiple) disabilities: How high do they climb on Shier's ladder of participation?

Experiences of participation in people with intellectual disability, in relation to service support received, and views from professionals in the field of disability

Purpose: to describe experiences of people with intellectual disability of participating in the cognitive adapted annual national user survey of social services, and their perception of participation in the municipalities' improvement work. Additionally, social service professionals' views of opportunities to involve people with intellectual disability in improvement work based on survey results. Methods: Focus groups of people with intellectual disability and individual interviews with professionals were conducted and analysed, using content analysis. Results: People with intellectual disability expressed they felt listened to, and supported in expressing their views, but there was discrepancy between their and professionals' perceptions of whether their views were considered, and if they were involved in the improvement process. Conclusions: Evaluating services received from social services is important, expressed by people with intellectual disability and professionals, but improvement is needed to feed back results to social services clients, and to involve them in the improvement process.

Online activities for individuals with intellectual disabilities at a day centre in the wake of COVID-19

Background

The lockdown of a day centre for individuals with intellectual disabilities led to digital activities instead of traditional physical presence.

Method

This study is based on 17 interviews with staff of a day centre, directors of day centres and support persons.

Findings

The purpose of the digital activities was to overcome physical distance and to create "social connectedness" with service users at a day centre. Emphasis was placed on recognisability to meet the needs of the service users. When the lockdown was lifted, service users were included in the production of digital artefacts. There were also obstacles to digitalisation: some service users had no access to Internet or tablets at home, some lawyers forbid the use of common digital programmes and service users were denied being visible on social media, support persons lacked digital competence and were reluctant to digital activities.

Conclusions

The experiences of digital activities including coproduction of films made individuals with intellectual disabilities active and visible on social media. This might facilitate the possibilities for future digital inclusion in society. The support from staff at the sheltered accommodations was vital and when it succeeded it promoted a more holistic approach to the service users' everyday lives.

The utility of goal attainment scaling in evaluating a structured water dance intervention for adults with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities

BACKGROUND

Adults with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities (PIMD) have problems to be actively involved in essential life activities that affect their health. The aim of this study was to explore the utility of goal attainment scaling (GAS) in evaluating an intervention for adults with PIMD, and to describe how the GAS goals were set according to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) domains of body function as well as activity and participation.

METHOD

As part of an aquatic intervention (Structured water dance), 28 adults with PIMD received GAS goals which were adapted to their individual needs and which the intervention could affect.

RESULT

Twenty of the goals were formulated within the ICF Activity/Participation domain and eight within the Body Functions domains. On average, participants improved by 1.25 levels on the five-level GAS scales.

CONCLUSION

GAS can be a useful tool for setting and evaluating individualized and meaningful goals, in body functions as well as in activity and participation, related to a healthpromoting activity for adults with PIMD.