A life story approach for people with profound learning disabilities

This article presents an alternative approach to studying issues concerning people with profound learning disabilities. Previous approaches have relied too heavily on quantitative methods, e.g. questionnaires and rating scales, which demand a certain degree of verbal competence. When working with people with profound learning disabilities who can not talk, these techniques are clearly limited. The current research aims to redress this imbalance by presenting an in-depth qualitative analysis of issues concerning the identities of people moving from a long-stay hospital to community care. Life story books were introduced as a resource for presenting biographical information about clients previously undocumented. It is suggested that we should move away from measuring to observing. Life story books take the focus away from viewing the participants as patients or subjects to considering them as people with their own unique life.