The Undateables

A recent television programme in the UK has sparked much debate in the disabled community… yep, you’ve guessed it: The Undateables.  It is often taken with mixed reaction with some viewing it as mocking and fuelling the fire of bullying for the disabled community, though many others view it to be a positive outreach of awareness in the community.  How the broadcasters for this program describe it is: “People living with challenging conditions are often considered 'undateable' - this series meets a few and follows their attempts to find love”. 

Whilst this has become a hot debate, I am not here to write about my views of bullying and portrayal of disabilities in the media, though that is one topic I am sure I could more than fill a blog piece on.  No, instead I am here to ask, what is the role of the SLT in all this? 

Recently I had a lecture on TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury), here the SLT lecturer said he worked with the client toward whatever goal the client selected, even if it was the task of helping a client to ask another person for a date.  Now so far in my work with adults with learning disabilities I have seen SLTs work on comprehension and understanding right from wrong and how to make choices and express their daily needs.  What this program has got me to question is, if there is a role for supporting a member of the TBI community to date for the SLT, should there not be a role for the SLT to support a member of the LD community in dating?   I wonder how many adult therapists in LD or ASD settings work on this as a shared priority goal?

For those who may not have seen the program, the second series now airing on Channel 4 in the UK has followed 6 people: a man with autism, a man with Tourette’s, a woman with aphasia, a man with Chron’s Disease, a man with a learning disability, and a woman with dwarfism. 

Of these people there were three that struck me as potential cases for an SLT; that of the man with autism, woman with aphasia and the man with a learning disability.  Now, if you think back to the earlier question of whether this program raises awareness, what can be said for the first episode of the series was that in the credits were the words “Thanks to the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists”, yet no mention of SLT during the episode.  It got me thinking how much input people with these different abilities get from the SLT services in the UK at current, many of them appeared to be independent in their life and not deemed as needing daily support, though there were many obvious communication challenges along the way. 

Many of my blog posts of lately appear to be ones reaching out to people and questioning.  I am more than curious about how the services for adults with LD work in the UK and how it is that SLTs prioritize in this busy time in the UK where SLT funding is low.  If anyone has any thoughts or experiences I would absolutely love to hear them. 

And consider this, next time you watch the Undateables, consider how much of an impact you could have on someone else’s communication and whether or not as a SLT you are effectively investigating what your clients wishes are for therapy and the goals they have in life. 

 

Youtube: The Undateables Series 2 Episode 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZD_7xHxZyc