Use of key word signing by staff in special schools and in day centres for adults with intellectual disabilities

Abstract

Background Staff may encourage individuals with intellectual disabilities to use manual signs by modelling its use, but implementing key word signing during daily activities can be demanding. Method Staff's use of manual signs was observed in four special schools and four day centres for adults with intellectual disabilities during communicative group activities, non-communicative group activities and mealtimes. Using in situ partial interval coding, we measured staff's communication rate, semantic diversity of manual signs, sign reinforcement and sign imitation. With Chi-squared tests, associations were measured between these variables, the two settings and the three activity types. Results During communicative activities, staff used manual signs significantly more in adult services than special schools. During non-communicative activities and mealtimes, staff seldom used or reinforced signs. Conclusions Staff communicated frequently but did not often model sign use during daily activities. To investigate influence from training background, further detailed measurements are warranted.

Manual signing throughout the day: Influence from staff's sign use and type of activity

“…Considering that staff were more inclined to use and reinforce manual signs during communicative activities (Rombouts et al . ), clients' non‐spontaneous sign rate during communicative activities might have been higher because staff prompted sign use more often during these activities (Carter ). Nevertheless, sequential analyses of observations were not conducted, and consequently, we cannot draw this conclusion.…”

“…The influence from staff's sign use seemed stronger during daily activities such as work, leisure and mealtime than during communicative activities, but it is exactly during the former activities that staff find it challenging to use signs (Rombouts et al . , ). Consequently, important implementation opportunities may be missed.…”

“…This variable was measured in Rombouts et al . () but was not used in the present analyses. Reinforcing sign use included prompting, cueing and nonverbal and verbal appraisal of clients'/students' sign use.…”

“…In a previous study, we demonstrated that staff used signs with varying consistency between three types of group activity (Rombouts et al . ). Their use of signs and sign reinforcements was considerably higher during group activities that centred on signing and communication than during work, leisure activities or mealtimes.…”

Use of key word signing for children and adults with intellectual disability in an Irish context

“…Over the last two decades, there have been mixed accounts of the practical use of KWS in services for children and adults (Bradshaw, 2001; Chadwick and Jolliffe, 2009; Meuris et al , 2015; Norburn et al , 2016; Rombouts et al , 2017). Rombouts et al (2018) found that staff in adult day centres used KWS more than staff in a special school. This was attributed to the adult staff having received more in-depth training than the teachers in the special school.…”