INT102 - Interpersonal Communication Skills: Disability Client Report

This report, prepared for the INT102 Interpersonal Communication Skills course, examines communication barriers encountered when interacting with individuals with disabilities. It identifies and describes various communication barriers, including those related to written materials, auditory information, and cognitive disabilities. The report then outlines essential communication skills, such as providing ample time for conversation, practicing active listening, and adopting a person-centered approach. Furthermore, it highlights resources like web accessibility guidelines, accessible digital media guidelines, and assistive technologies that can aid effective communication. A personal experience of the author is included to illustrate the challenges and importance of effective communication in this context. The report emphasizes the significance of training and awareness in fostering an inclusive and supportive environment for individuals with disabilities. The report is a comprehensive look at the communication challenges and strategies for improving interactions with this client group.

Running head: INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS
INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Communication barriers in working with the disability client group........................................3
Communication skills required for effectively communicating with the disability client.........4
Resources to overcome communication barriers for working with disable client.....................4
Personal experience about a person within the disability group................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
This report presents the communication barriers in working with the disability client group. It
also discusses the communication skills required for effectively communicating with the
disabled client. This report illustrates the resources to overcome communication barriers for
working with disabled clients.
Communication barriers in working with the disability client group
There are different communication barriers that can impact on the ability of an individual to
navigate different aspects of life. These barriers could be illustrated as internal and external
barriers to an individual:
(Sources: Kelly, 2018).
Communication barriers are experienced by individual who have disabilities that could
influence the hearing, reading, speaking, writing and understanding as well as, who uses
several ways to communicate as compared to people who do not have these disabilities
(Tuffrey‐Wijne, et. al., 2017). These barriers of communication are included:

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 Written messages on health promotions have obstacles stopping these people include
vision impairments from getting the text. It includes:
 Application of small text and no large- versions of models.
 Lack of screen printers and no bar codes or variants for disable people.
 Audit health communications can be unavailable, even for individuals who
have hearing disabilities:
 Videos that do not accompany the captioning.
 Visual communication (such as Sign Language) without direct manual
translation (Chadwick, 2017).
 The barriers to work with cognitive disable people are an application of technical
terms, lengthy sentences, as well as, words with several vowel sounds.
Communication skills required for effectively communicating with the disability client
 Provide a longer time to converse with disabled persons. Not speeding and not
pressing those persons are crucial to keep a suitable speed.
 Understanding and identifying the requirements for fair adjustment rather than giving
the need for improvement to speak volumes for constructive strategy. It also
emphasizes on the need for communication itself, instead of emphasizing on disability
(Chadwick, Buell, and Goldbart, 2019).
 Being person-centred shows an individual is serious about understanding it right, and
also, they want to develop client engagement. Individual-centeredness is about putting
the individual who has an intellectual disability in the focus of all interactions,
decisions, planning as well as, making sure that they are supported during their
journey via health system (Pound, et. al., 2018).
Resources to overcome communication barriers for working with disable client
Web Accessibility Guidelines

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Such criteria clarify how web material is made available to disabled people. The principles
are designed for all developers of web content as well as, authoring tool developers. The
standards are taken through the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) (Rombouts, Maes, and
Zink, 2017).
Pew Internet Report
Pew publishes studies explore the effect on families, neighbourhoods, everyday life,
employment, work, and home, health care, as well as civic and political existence of the
internet. According to the latest studies, people with longer-term disabilities are slightly less
possibly to be attracted to the Internet as compared to healthy adults (Rothman, 2018).
Accessible Digital Media Guidelines
The website explains the educational requirement of disabled people, and also how apps,
digital books as well as other technology can meet those requirements. These instructions
also explore ways to accomplish the purpose of supporting people to learn by using
innovative as well as, usable technology (Tuffrey‐Wijne, et. al., 2017).
Federal Social Media Accessibility Toolkit
This framework is a guide to enhance the social media transparency for disable people
service. This living guide is produced with the help of social media representatives in
companies. It provides useful suggestions, real-life illustrations as well as good practices to
make sure that social media information is available and open to all people, such as those
with disabilities (Yeap, et. al., 2016).
Build Awareness and Invest in Training
A responsive employee is an inspired workforce. To work with disabilities to be completely
transitioned into a workforce, all workers must be acquainted with their company's shared
dedication to becoming disabled-friendly (Fredman, 2018). Sensitizing training, as well as
etiquette courses, would help full-time staff obtain more insight regarding how

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to effectively deal with workers who have disabilities. Some staff can be knowingly and
unintentionally biased towards their subordinates with disabilities.
The company's quality training should help to eliminate those ideas. Employees will also be
provided clear details about how they could support their disabled employees in cases of
emergency (Yeap, et. al., 2016).
Make Use of Assistive Technology
Augmented reality technology helps people with disabilities to be an effective part of the
workforce and has developed by leaps as well as, bounds over the last couple of years. Most
of the new jobs need technology as well as computers. When the firm invests in the right
artificial technology, software as well as online resources, workers with disabilities will be
capable to perform out their job duties with no barriers (Tuffrey‐Wijne, et. al., 2017).
Personal experience about a person within the disability group
Communication is the best way to deal with people and comprehending their issues
effectively. But it is also illustrated that barriers in communication could create the possibility
of conflict and increase problems. I learned some essential things at the time of dealing with
disabled people. In an organization, there was a lack of technology that unable to me for
effectively communicating with disabled persons. The organization has not kept modern
technology that creates a problem for me as well as to the disabled people to convey their
message. It created miscommunication between disabling people and me. People are unable
to comprehend what I trying to say that was a thought situation for me to handle this gap.
Apart from this, I was not trained that also enables me to effectively handle the situation and
communicate with the disabled people. Lack of training towards the handling of disabled
people could eliminate the opportunity to converse with them effectively and comprehend
their problems. This was a major issue for me to deal with people and make a positive
relationship with them.

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References
Chadwick, D., Buell, S. and Goldbart, J., 2019. Approaches to communication assessment
with children and adults with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities. Journal of
Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 32(2), pp.336-358.
Chadwick, D.D., 2017. Dysphagia management for people with intellectual disabilities:
practitioner identified processes, barriers, and solutions. Journal of Policy and Practice in
Intellectual Disabilities, 14(4), pp.319-331.
Fredman, G., 2018. Working systemically with intellectual disability: why not?.
In Intellectual Disabilities (pp. 1-20). Routledge.
Kelly, A., 2018. Working with adults with a learning disability. Routledge.
Pound, C., Parr, S., Lindsay, J. and Woolf, C., 2018. Beyond aphasia: Therapies for living
with communication disability. Routledge.
Rombouts, E., Maes, B. and Zink, I., 2017. Keyword signing usage of adults with intellectual
disabilities: Influence of communication partners' sign usage and responsivity. American
journal of speech-language pathology, 26(3), pp.853-864.
Rothman, J., 2018. Social work practice across disability. Routledge.
Tuffrey‐Wijne, I., Rose, T., Grant, R. and Wijne, A., 2017. Communicating about death and
dying: developing training for staff working in services for people with intellectual
disabilities. Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 30(6), pp.1099-1110.
Yeap, C.E., Ibrahim, H., Vandort, S., Ahmad, K. and Yasin, M.S., 2016. CBR Workers'
Training Needs for People with Communication Disability. Disability, CBR & Inclusive
Development, 27(4), pp.37-54.