GMMH colleagues contribute to groundbreaking new book: Communication Interventions with Deaf People
We’re proud to share that two of our Speech and Language Therapists at the John Denmark Unit, Kim Williams and Lindsey Gagan, have contributed to a new publication: Communication Interventions with Deaf People.
This is a fantastic achievement, not only because the new book adds valuable insight to the limited body of work that exists on communication interventions for this population, but also because it highlights the expertise we have right here at GMMH.
Communication Interventions with Deaf People offers a unique insight into communication assessments and interventions in signed, spoken, and written language with deaf and hard of hearing children, young people, and adults. With the publication combining academic and clinical expertise to provide an accessible resource on a topic that is not readily available to practitioners.
The new publication sets out to provide a deaf perspective on communication interventions where the multiple languages, signed, spoken, and written, of deaf people are valued equally, which breaks the mould of existing resources, where the focus is historically centred on spoken communication.
Speaking on her contribution to the new book, Lindsey Gagan said:
"It was a privilege to be approached by Professor Ros Herman at UCL to contribute to the book she was editing. Myself and Liz Stott from the London equivalent service of JDU gathered together a working group of therapists to put together the chapter on clinical assessment that had been requested. Writing and editing the contributions was a long process but we’re so pleased that we have a piece of work which pulls together national clinical practice within this small specialist field.
When Kim and I started working at JDU in the 1990s there was so little in the way of evidence and guidance and we relied much on reflective practice while the research base began to grow. We hope this book will be a useful resource to therapists developing their skills now and will inform their future work."
While Kim Williams added:
"It was great to be asked to contribute to this book. There is so little information about the communication interventions for deaf people that any new publication will be really positive. To be able to showcase the work we do as Speech and Language therapists and the benefits it can have was both exciting and a privilege."
Communication Interventions with Deaf People will be published at the start of July, with a copy available to access from The Library Service in The Curve from mid-July.
