Joan Murphy devised the framework called Talking Mats (literally mats with pictures attached) during a research project in 1998. Talking Mats was originally developed to help people with communication difficulties to think about the issues discussed with them and to express their opinions. Since then Talking Mats has been used with many people with and without communication difficulties both in the UK and abroad. People who have used Talking Mats have found it enjoyable and easy to use. It is not an assessment, but rather a tool for helping people to express themselves. Recent research has proved it improves the quality and quantity of information gained.

Talking Mats is an interactive resource that uses 3 sets of picture symbols –topics, options and visual scale.

topics: whatever you want to talk about (e.g. pictures symbolising what do you want to do during the day, where you want to live, who do you want to spend time with, ….

options: relating specifically to each topic. For example, whether you want to go to college, attend a day centre, stay at home, ….

visual scale: in order to allow participants to indicate their general feelings about each topic and option. For example, whether they are happy, unsure, unhappy.

Once the topic is chosen e.g. ‘what do you want to do during the day?’ the participant is given the options one at a time and asked to think about what s/he feels about it. S/he can then place the symbol under the appropriate emotion to indicate what s/he feels. It allows topics to be explored at different levels. The use of both video and digital camera are used, the former to ensure non verbal communication is taken account of and the latter to give a permanent record of the mat.

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