Journal of Intellectual Disabilities

Relationships with external professionals may be an important factor in the psychological wellbeing of care staff. A questionnaire to measure team climate and staff wellbeing was developed, tested and revised. Seventy-two direct care staff completed the revised questionnaire, which had acceptable levels of internal consistency. Significant correlations were found between care staff attitudes towards professionals and levels of team climate and psychological wellbeing.The pattern of relationships was explored by path analysis. Further work is needed on the reliability and validity of the questionnaire.There is a clear association between attitudes to professionals and team climate and between some aspects of climate and psychological wellbeing. Professionals should adopt collaborative ways of working based on problem-solving approaches with staff teams, with the aim of delivering improved quality of care to residents.

A personal development program, entitled ‘Growing Pains’, was developed for 11-to 15-year-old students with intellectual and developmental disabilities in a specialist school. Seven topics were identified as important in supporting students through the physical and emotional changes of adolescence. A single-group, non-experimental outcome evaluation was conducted on a 20 week trial program.Teacher-developed checklists of observable skills were completed pre-and post-program for 68 participants yielding individual ‘personal development’ scores and whole group ‘topic’ scores, graphed to observe pre–post differences. Parents and teachers completed feedback questionnaires. Graphed data showed positive trends in individual personal development and most topic scores.The topic ‘personal hygiene’ showed almost no change across the group but parent and teacher feedback identified it as highly important. Causality cannot be established using this design; however, positive trends justified persisting with the program. Future studies might investigate effective means of teaching personal hygiene skills.

The aim of this study was to investigate the successful experiences of people with Down syndrome to provide insights into the potential of people with intellectual disabilities. A qualitative approach was adopted, and 10 recipients of the Stevie Award for Outstanding Persons with Down syndrome were interviewed. Interviews with the participants' parents and other significant persons were also conducted. Content analysis and constant comparative method were adopted for data analysis. All 10 participants achieved in life when they demonstrated the motivation and perseverance to try new things and active involvement in extra-curricular activities and volunteer service. Role modeling and support from parents and teachers helped participants to develop talents in sports and arts. Effective family support and ongoing collaboration among family, school and community facilities are vital in enabling people with intellectual disabilities to develop their potential for a life of quality.

This study examined the age at death of people with an intellectual disability in Ireland. Using data from the National Intellectual Disability Database, the average age at death of 1120 people who died between 1996 and 2001 was 45.68 years, with no difference in lifespan between men and women. A more severe level of intellectual disability predicted shorter lifespan. In general, those requiring lower levels of day-to-day support and supervision had a longer lifespan.Those living in the family home had the shortest lifespan while those in hospital residential environments had the longest lifespan.Those not attending any day service had a longer lifespan than those attending a range of day services.There were also differences in age at death across different health board regions.These findings are discussed in light of their implications for service planning.

The growth and development of children with developmental disability depend very much on the parents.The present study was designed to examine whether family-focused education could enhance parental skills, knowledge and competency.The enhancement would in turn result in greater parental participation in the rehabilitation process of these children.The parental needs of Chinese parents were reviewed for the formulation of the Family-Focused Education Programme, which was then implemented, and evaluated using a pre-test/post-test control group design. Forty parents were invited to participate in the study using a convenience sampling technique.The mean scores of these variables were in the direction of increasing after the programme, though repeated measures ANOVA did not indicate any statistically significant changes in parenting knowledge, attitude and stress. It was apparent that the Family-Focused Education Programme enhanced parental competence. Undoubtedly, the family-focused approach is crucial for enhancing parenting competency, and education is fundamental to enabling parents.

This article describes and discusses 27 interviews that explored perceptions of the effectiveness of advocacy services for people with learning disabilities in the UK.The views of stakeholders on the current position of advocacy services, how services are evaluated and recommendations for change are central themes in the analysis of the interviews.The discussion suggests that although evaluation of effectiveness is increasingly important in the light of policy change and funding constraints, it is not universally in place and available tools are considered to be inadequate for the task.The explanation of this may lie in the continuing debates over the meaning and purpose of evaluation and fears that it is one-dimensional. Future investment and commitment to advocacy schemes will need to address these issues.