Self-determination and co-operation in supported mealtimes involving people with severe intellectual disabilities.

Purpose: People with severe intellectual disabilities are often supported during mealtimes. However, little information exists about how they and care staff co-ordinate their mealtime behaviours.

Method: Four people with severe intellectual disabilities and 12 members of care staff participated in this research.

Forms of resistance in people with severe and profound intellectual disabilities.

Government policy in the UK emphasises that people with intellectual disabilities should have the opportunity to make choices and exert control over their own lives as much as possible. The ability of a person to resist activities and offers is therefore important, particularly for people with severe and profound intellectual disabilities, who are likely to have language impairments and need to communicate their choices non-verbally. Video and ethnographic data were collected from two services for people with severe and profound intellectual disabilities.

It Does Take Two to Tango: An Applied Conversation Analysis of Interactions between a Psychiatrist and Service-Users Discussing Medication.

Decisions concerning psychiatric medication are complex and often involve a protracted process of trial and error. We examine three recorded meetings for power-sharing and power-taking discourse strategies employed by both the psychiatrist and mental health service-user, when discussing psychiatric medication. We identify examples of good practice, as well as missed opportunities to engage service-users in co-constructed dialogue, and highlight that participation and active involvement in decisions is not best seen as a fixed pattern, but is a complex interplay that changes both between and within interactions.