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Attitudes of Speech and Language Therapists to Intimate Relationships Among People With Learning Difficulties: An Exploratory Study
Author(s) -
Harris Philip,
Brady Carmel
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
british journal of learning disabilities
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.633
H-Index - 39
eISSN - 1468-3156
pISSN - 1354-4187
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-3156.1995.tb00188.x
Subject(s) - psychology , semantic differential , set (abstract data type) , scale (ratio) , learning disability , exploratory research , developmental psychology , stratified sampling , sample (material) , social psychology , clinical psychology , medicine , physics , quantum mechanics , computer science , anthropology , programming language , chemistry , pathology , chromatography , sociology
This study explored the attitudes of speech and language therapists (SLT) to intimate relationships among people with learning difficulties. A stratified random sample of SLTs ( n =66) were sent a short, written scenario concerning two young adults with learning difficulties who were about to set up home together. Half the SLT's received a scenario in which ‘John’ was said to have a severe learning difficulty, the other participants received a scenario in which ‘John’ had a mild learning difficulty. The two scenarios were otherwise identical. All participants were asked to rate the scenario using a semantic differential scale. Forty completed questionnaires were analysed and the results indicated relatively favourable attitudes toward someone with a mild learning difficulty. Attitudes toward a person with severe learning difficulties were significantly less favourable ( p <0.001), however, it could not be concluded that the unfavourable attitudes were directly related to engaging in an intimate sexual relationship.