Unit 393 – UNDERSTAND SENSORY LOSS 1.1 Sensory loss can often be a hidden disability which can frequently lead to isolation and frustration at not being able to communicate efficiently with other people. With hearing loss, day to day activities such as watching television, using the telephone, hearing the doorbell, or just taking part in conversations can produce feelings of inadequacy. Conversely, not being able to distinguish faces, read the time on a clock or drive can produce the same feelings in a person who has vision loss. Having a dual sensory loss compounds the frustration and isolation a person feels when trying to communicate effectively. Many blind and partially sighted people lose the ability to see gestures and facial expressions, which are important parts of communication.
Older adults who are hard of hearing often report that their hearing loss causes communication problems, which can result in difficulty thinking or concentrating. This results in inattentiveness, distraction, and boredom. The most serious consequence is withdrawal or abandoning participation. Older adults with hearing loss face many of the same fears that anyone with a disability encounters. They worry about loss of significant relationships or jobs or about being perceived as incompetent.
Outcome 2 2.1 Picture boards, brail, sign language, finger writing, hearing aids. 2.2 my own role and practice can impact on an individual who has specific communication needs as if you do not communicate with a person in a way that they understand they may feel left out and alone, hence they may suffer from additional mental health disabilities such as depression. When you do spend time with a service user, and do include them and communicate in a way that they understand then they will feel as if they are valued Features of the environment that may help or hinder communication include: Visual Factors Lighting conditions: light should be on the talker's face Interfering objects: visual noise Distance: no further than 6 feet from the talker Talker's Face: face/mouth should not be covered head movements should be well-lit no eating, chewing, smoking moustaches
Some of the symptoms of distress are mumbled/garbled speech or stammering, anxiety, anger, aggressive body language and concentrating problems. These are barriers that impact on effective communication, leading to misunderstanding on both sides. If you are the person in distress, you cannot hear or able to understand the whole picture because of the vicious cycle mentioned above. Individuals who are distressed will not be able to concentrate properly or focus fully, therefore their communication skills will be negatively affected. Whenever an individual becomes distressed they may experience the sense of "self" being compromised, as in low self esteem, effective communication may suffer as an individual feels withdrawn or stressed.
1.3 Explain how distress may affect the way an individual communicates. All individuals may react differently when feeling distressed. Some may become quiet, and not want to talk or make eye contact with you. Others may become angrier, and do all the talking in the conversation, and they may begin shouting. Individual’s self-esteem can be low, and their body language may be closed or negative, this can make communication difficult with an individual whom is distressed because you may not get any feed back from them, or you may not get a change to talk or be listened to to help them.
Ask Supervisor/Mentor and specialist professionals such as speech and language therapists, occupational therapists and social workers for information, advice and support on how best to communicate with adults who have special communication needs. 1.3 Be able to reduce barriers to communication Environmental factors – noise, poor lighting can prevent a person from noticing non-verbal communication and could reduce a hearing impaired person’s ability to lip-read. Also being too hot or cold cause discomfort and those that lack privacy discourage people from expressing their feelings and problems. Development Stage – a person’s development stage could limit their ability to communicate and may be a barrier to effective communication, if you don’t take this into account when choosing your words or way of talking to them. Don’t use long sentences, complex words or unusual phrases with young children, for
These factors can affect a person’s ability to be a part of their own community or play active roles in society as they feel isolated and often lack of understanding from others in regard to their sensory loss. People with sensory loss often feel frustrated when trying to express themselves and can often be misunderstood in a variety of situations. Society’s attitudes towards people with sensory loss is that people often think just because they have a sensory loss that they have limited capacity in other areas and over compensate for this without asking the person of their abilities and taking the time to recognise their strengths. Individuals not having their own opinions valued and taken into account can affect their overall health and wellbeing. Society has improved in their attitudes towards those with hearing problems such as the use of subtitled information, the use of guide dogs for the blind.
Answer in Unit 4222-258 Introductory awareness of sensory loss Outcome 1 1. Describe how a range of factors have a negative and positive impact on individuals with sensory loss In sensory loss (touch/ mobility, vision, hearing) can have a big impact to an individual like for example in mobility, the person can not feed or dress himself, or can not participate in an activity and worst if he can not attend to his personal daily living. Another is eyesight or vision, the person who suffers from this disability have a very hard time communicating or even to express themselves to what they want to do and wishes without the help of other person. This case is the same with a person who is deaf or can not hear anything. And sometimes when you suffer from this disabilities, people are easily judge you in a way that they try to seclude you or belong you to have a below average intelligence and assume that you can not do or think the same as other people.
This can include being denied opportunities such as employment or accommodation because of their illness. Stigma in the form of social distancing has been observed when people are unwilling to associate with a person with mental illness. This might include not allowing the person to provide childcare, or declining the offer of a date (Corrigan et al, 2001). Self-discrimination or internalised discrimination is the process in which people with mental health problems turn the stereotypes about mental illness adopted by the public, towards themselves. They assume they will be rejected socially and so believe they are not valued (Livingston and Boyd,
So expressing themselves using body language may be difficult do to lack of cognitive control in their limbs, or hands. They may also show the same signs as Alzheimer’s disease. • Lewy bodies dementia is very similar to Alzheimer’s disease, the difference being that they may have hallucinations and become fearful. This will affect communication due to their behaviour may mean they are too scared to talk, or be spoken to. Physical and mental health factors need to be taken into account when communicating with someone with dementia, they may also be hard of hearing, or have limited eyesight.