Adults With Developmental Disabilities

It will give your staff an idea of the issues that your clients face on a daily basis. It will give your staff some continuity in what they are telling clients. A brand new staff person doesn't have to come in and guess at what has been discussed before and start re-inventing the wheel. It will give your clients some continuity is the messages they are hearing. It will let your clients know that your staff views them as adults who want to help them become as independent as they can be. I used to hear my staff shout out (while reading the curriculum on their own), "Hey, that's Bill!" and I knew they had seen something that they hadn't thought of before in relation to a specific client.

 

My staff was great at including ALL clients in the discussions. One day, just outside of my office door, a staff person spent about 15 minutes with a non-verbal, "low functioning" woman in a wheelchair, explaining why it would be to her benefit to learn to push the button to open the door automatically. He demonstrated how the button worked and used hand over hand prompts to show her how it worked, but most importantly, he explained as though he was talking to a friend (and not to a "disabled woman") why opening the door on her own would make her more independent - she wouldn't have to wait for others to do it for her, she would be demonstrating to others her independence, etc. After about 15 minutes of that, she reached out and pushed the button for the first time. Did she do it just to shut him up or because her was treating and talking to her like she was a 22 year old woman? I don't know, but I prefer to think it was because for the first time, someone treated her like an adult and explained WHY to do something.

That's what the curriculum does... it explains how and why to do things without talking down to our clients. Do I think it will meet your needs? Yes... as long as your staff faithfully uses it and uses it properly.

 

You may have seen that I also have an indoor activity book. For each activity, I include a list of curriculum topics that could be discussed during the activity (so as not to make it a lecture). For example, I include a Hand Lotion activity. As staff leads the clients in a discussion about  what hand lotions are and demonstrates how to use them properly, they could also discuss Hygiene - Hand Washing. Or Relaxation - Stress. Or Emotions - Dealing with Emotions. Or Exercise/Mobility - Hand Flexibility.

 

Will the curriculum meet the needs of your agency? You can check out all of my disability resource books at www.mosscanyon.com. Just click on the Disability Resource tab on the left side of the home page.