The experiences of non-disabled children growing up with a sibling with an intellectual disability vary considerably, with reported impact ranging from increased mental health problems through evaluations of life enhancement. However, there is evidence that the net impact is neutral to positive, which was supported by the findings of this report of a service evaluation survey. The value of providing support to those young siblings is however clear. An established method of support is within a group of peers who also have a sibling with an intellectual disability, though no specific method for running this type of group has yet been fully explored. This article reports the views of 39 children taking part in such a group, analysing their perspective through a proposed model for the operation of sibling groups: social pedagogy. It was found that the closer the group's activities were to social pedagogy, the more supported the children and young people felt.

Though long alluded to, there is now an accumulation of evidence of the vital contribution that emotion makes to learning. Within this broad advance in understanding is a growing body of research emphasising the embodied nature of this emotion-based learning. The study presented here is a pilot study using a mixed-method approach (combining both physiological and experiential methodologies) to give a picture of the “emotional landscape” of people’s learning through the intervention under study. This has allowed researchers to examine mediating pathways that may underlie any effects of an equine-assisted intervention. This study specifically focuses on examining the role of emotion. The intervention under study was used with young people with chronic mental health and behavioural problems for whom talk-based interventions were not working. Nine healthy participants aged 18–24 undertook the equine intervention, with an initial group having emotion-related psycho-physiological changes (skin conductance responses) measured while viewing their experience on video, and a further two participants experiencing a development of the methodology as their physiological responses were captured in real time during the intervention. The sessions were analysed by a group of five cross-disciplinary researchers to determine when significant learning episodes occurred, and the findings were that this learning was associated with powerful skin conductance responses. The qualitative element of the research entailed the participants watching themselves on video undertaking the equine intervention. They were asked to stop the video and share any changes in emotion at any point while watching. All participants experienced a positive temporal change in mood as the intervention progressed. All results supported the findings that emotional arousal occurred in relation to the participants asking the horse to perform a task. This paper will offer two novel contributions: (1) description of a new methodology for investigating the mechanism of action occurring in this type of intervention and (2) findings from the exploration of the intervention via psycho-physiological and experiential mechanisms.

Accessible summary Children and young people with learning disabilities should be involved in decisions that affect them, including having a say in how their services are run. In practice, it is difficult to achieve involvement, as service providers can treat young people with disabilities and their families as ‘shoppers’ rather than really listening to them. It can also be hard to find out exactly how individuals feel, because of their difficulties with language and complicated information. Social pedagogy is an approach to working with children who sees them as equals. The study used these ideas to run a group to involve young people with learning disabilities who used short break services. The research found that social pedagogy was a good way to improve involvement, as it helped to build trusting and equal relationships between young people with learning disabilities and the adults who worked with them. Summary The involvement of children and young people with learning disabilities in the decision‐making of the services they use is recognised as an essential principle. However, implementation of this principle has encountered two main obstacles. One obstacle is that meaningful involvement has largely been subsumed by a provider‐driven consumerist agenda. A second obstacle is the lack of methods to gain feedback that take account of an individual's cognitive and linguistic impairments. This article reports on the use of the social pedagogy approach to attempt to overcome these obstacles. The findings show that social pedagogy, which emphasises a balance between ‘head, heart and hands’, provided a means to establish egalitarian relationships with young people with learning disabilities. Thus, social pedagogy was found to be effective in enhancing involvement in the context of a person‐centred approach.

This paper reviews the contribution neuroscience is making to our knowledge of emotion and learning, and how it might impact on psychotherapy and counselling. In all cases, with the possible exception of procedures relying on operant and classical conditioning, psychotherapy and counselling depend on a conception of emotion. The neuroscience of emotion contains two conceptions of the nature of feelings, which are relevant to the foundational ideas of orientations within interpersonal therapies. Also, therapy models employ an element of learning as a measure of success, and neuroscience is revealing an interaction between emotion and learning. The potential application of the findings of neuroscience to work with people with cognitive impairments is explored, particularly use of psychophysiological analogues of emotion.

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