In the Health and Well-being resource, we have provided four sets of symbols to help people consider how they feel about their communication. Because communication is  complex and often abstract, it can be particularly difficult for people to express their views about it, especially if they have existing communication difficulties. To make this easier, we have divided communication into four topics:

• Expression
• Understanding
• Learning and thinking
• Relationships.

In the following example, I show how each topic can be used to build up a picture of how someone feels about different aspects of their communication. I worked with Kate, a 42 year old woman who had a stroke which left her with severe expressive and receptive aphasia. She was able to communicate through vocalisations and gestures. She could sometimes draw or write down words and needed to point to ‘yes/no’ in order to reliably answer closed questions. Following discharge from hospital, I used Talking Mats with Kate to find out how she felt about her communication. I started with the ‘communication – expression’ topic and found that she felt that she was having lots of difficulties making herself understood, particularly on the phone and in group situations:

I then explored how Kate felt about understanding what people were saying to her. Kate was able to tell me that she found it easier to understand people on a one to one basis rather than in a group setting. She indicated that it really helped her if people used gestures or wrote things down. Her main difficulty was understanding people on the phone, and in fact she had stopped answering the phone altogether (see mat below).

We went on to do a mat about Kate’s learning and thinking. In this set, there are symbols which cover higher level language activities such as reading, problem solving and organisation. When we talked about these areas, Kate was able to tell me about the things she was finding most problematic, but could also identify some things that she felt she could still manage (such as calculations and reading newspapers).

I then asked Kate how she felt about communicating with different people in her life. This mat shows that Kate found talking to her husband and her parents (who lived quite far away) particularly difficult.

As a result of doing these mats, we were able to target the things that mattered most to Kate in relation to her communication, and came up with the following actions:
1. Kate felt that her husband needed support and information, so we spent time working with him, showing him the best ways to support Kate’s communication.
2. Because Kate’s parents lived quite far away, she could only contact them using the phone, which was very difficult. We worked on getting Skype set up so that Kate could communicate with her family using all the modes available to her.
By splitting communication into different sub mats, Kate was able to think about different aspects of her communication and identify the things that she found most challenging. Together we began to work out some ways to help her overcome her difficulties.
Use the communication symbols to find out what people want to work on and use a collaborative approach to establish some goals to work on in therapy. I used the original Talking Mats when I explored  Kate’s communication with her, but you could do the same with Digital Talking Mats. Find out more about it here.

The Health and Well-being resource is based on the WHO International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) which is a framework which covers almost every aspect of daily life and can be applied over different cultures (WHO 2001).

Use of the WHO ICF helps professionals to think holistically about the people they are working with. We have produced four sets of symbols, based on WHO ICF, to help people express their views about different aspects of their lives. These cover 13 topics:

You can use the symbols in different ways, depending on the cognitive abilities of the person you are working with. For example, if you are working with someone who can understand abstract concepts, you could start with the 13 main health and well-being symbols. Your top scale might be ‘managing’ and ‘not managing’. Here is an example of a mat completed by Duncan who had a stroke which affected his ability to communicate through speech:

Using these symbols as a starting point, Duncan could tell us that his main concerns related to worries about his health, expressive communication and work. From here, we did ‘sub mats’ to help Duncan identify the specific areas he wanted to work on/explore.

Here is the mat Duncan completed in relation to his health:

Having done this mat with Duncan, it became clear that he was worried about various aspects of his health, particularly the risk of having another stroke. The wider team were able to give him and his wife information about stroke prevention. Other mats were also completed, exploring expressive communication, work and education and higher level communication (which is included in the ‘learning and thinking’ topic, and covers written communication as well as memory and concentration). Using the Health and Well-being symbols, we were able to work with Duncan to help him identify the main issues that he wanted to work on and then work towards more specific rehabilitation goals. Duncan had copies of all the mats he had completed and found it useful to refer to them over the months. This helped everybody stay on track in relation to his goals and he was also able to track his progress over time.

Have a look at our Health and Well-being resource on our website. It is available both as an original Talking Mat with a physical mat and symbol cards or as a  digital version  as part of The Talking Mats pro subscription

I like my iPad and I LOVE the new Talking Mats app.
My 89 year old mum lives on her own about 2 hours from where I live and enjoys looking at photos on my iPad Mum has ‘all her marbles’, as the saying goes, and freely expresses her extreme views on current affairs, politics and photographs in Hello magazine! More difficult however, is discussing her failing energy levels and physical strength. She has till now resisted all suggestions of moving house to somewhere with more support.

I knew she would be interested in the Talking Mats app and a demonstration one afternoon flowed naturally into the Domestic topic of the Health and Well Being section. Suddenly we were in the middle of that difficult conversation we’d both been avoiding. Mum fully engaged with the app and changed the position of some items after consideration

The reality is she isn’t managing, she’s struggling. For the first time using the Talking Mats app she confessed to all domestic tasks being difficult even with the bits and pieces of help going in regularly.
The app made that bit easy. Making a decision about the next step will be more difficult.

Rhona Matthews

During the final stages of developing Digital Talking Mats, we invited some people with aphasia and their partners to come and try it out for us. I spent some time talking to Matthew, who has severe global aphasia and dyspraxia. Matthew loves having a chat, but relaxed conversation can be a challenge because Matthew finds it difficult to generate language and sometimes his yes/no responses get mixed up. I used the ‘activities’ topic with Matthew to have a chat about the things he likes (and doesn’t like) doing. Matthew found the Digital Talking Mats easy to use and quickly gave me his views about activities. Using the i-pad made the conversation feel very natural, and Matthew was able to convey his sense of humour – when I asked him about Church; Matthew started to sing the Funeral March! We had quite a laugh about this, and it turned out that at the moment, Matthew really only goes to Church when there is a funeral. Matthew was also able to tell me about things that he finds difficult since his stroke, such as reading and doing DIY. During our conversation, I was struck by how equal the conversation felt. Matthew was able to express his views without feeling pressurised to think of words. I was able to ask Matthew open questions without worrying that I might not understand his responses. Using Talking Mats on the i-pad was easy and relaxed. I could imagine using it with Matthew to have a chat over coffee or at the pub. Perhaps we should think of some conversational symbol sets?

To see Matthew using the app, click here 

Speech presented at the launch of new Talking Mats Resources

Hello everyone, my name is Greig McMurchie and I would like to take the opportunity to welcome you all here today. If I look familiar it may be because you recognised me from the original talking mat video, where I had a cameo appearance with the lovely Joan murphy of course that was over ten years ago, and back then I was  much younger and better looking. Joan however is still as lovely as the day I met her.

As you can see, I have been involve in talking mats for many years now, ever since Joan asked me to help her trial a new communication system, that she and her colleague Lois had been developing. My initial thoughts were wow, this sounds really complicated and I was a little bit scared.  But I had known Joan since I was little and I really wanted to see what this new Communication system was all about.

When Joan came to visit me at that Dundas day center, all those years ago, all my fear quickly disappeared, it was really easy. I was able to have my say, and because it was visual I could change my mind also.  I began using talking mats to share my views, opinions and wishes, and before long this system was helping me to make life Changing decisions, such as what I wanted to do with my life once I had finished my college course. In fact you could argue that I am where I am today because of talking mats. And I like to say I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Anyway, that was away back then, and times have move on. About four weeks ago Joan and Lois came to Upper Sprinlands to visit me, and of course show me their wonderful bran new talking mats app. My initial thoughts were this sound fantastic, and when they arrived we had a wee chart and they explained what they had been doing.

I don’t know about everyone else, but when I was a kid a tablet was something you took if you were not feeling too well, an android was a character from a computer game and an apple was something you gave to your teacher to butter them up if you forgot to do your homework. But today all this modern technology is making it easy for everyone to engage creating doorways to all kinds of wonderful stuff. And boy can I say this new talking mats app is all kinds of wonderful.

So after we chatted I got to have a wee play with the new app, I couldn’t believe how easy it was, you were able to just move the pictures around and place them were you want them on the screen.  The New picture sets are fantastic, they are bright colourful and easy to understand.  I also like the way you can enlarge the picture to make it easier to see. And of course the fact that it come already to use. You can even take a photograph and send it to yourself by email. No more printing, cutting out and Velcroing, no more hunting for the camera only to realize the batteries are flat and you can’t use it anyway.  Everything is just nicely packaged. And the fact that it can be used not only on an Ipad but also on a computer makes it even more accessible.

Dare I say I personally felt the new App for me was even easier than the old system; it is quicker, fun and very cool?  Now I just need to persuade Upper springland to Purchase a copy or twelve.

Thank you talking Mats

(Speech at the Launch of the New Talking Mats Resources )

We are about to launch a digital version of Talking Mats which uses our brand new images, specially designed by a leading comic artist. We are currently in the testing phase to check how it is received by different client groups and professionals and to iron out any glitches.

We are planning to launch a free taster version first.

Following this there will be a Lite version with 2 full symbols sets ( £5.99) and then a subscription model with many more symbols sets and lots of additional functionality. It will also be available for Android.

The final version will be launched on 12th September.

If you would like to be kept informed of this exciting development please send an email to info@talkingmats.com

Grandma Murphy’s thoughts

Last Monday I was visiting my mum-in-law who is 95 and has severe dementia. She wasn’t great when I arrived and the staff said she was very tired. It was hard to understand what she was saying and she seemed very frail. For something to do, I showed her some of the new Talking Mats images on my iPad and she perked up and smiled at several of them.

I then took a risk and suggested she might like to use them to tell me what she thinks about herself. I was amazed as she looked carefully at each image, thought about it, made a comment and indicated where she wanted to put it on the ‘mat’. For the first time in ages with me she seemed to be in the present and not in some confused place in her mind

Here are some of her comments:

Getting around – she said she was glad she has a wheel chair to help

Hearing – she said she thought her hearing had got better ( I later discovered she had just got a new hearing aid that morning!)

Feet – sometimes her feet are sore underneath (the staff are going to get the chiropodist to have a look)

Talking – she said it depends who she’s talking to!

Money – said she could always do with more!

The 3 things she was not happy about were – needing help from others, taking her medication and her teeth. (The staff confirmed that she hates taking her medication and have referred her to the dentist).

She loved the pictures and took loads of time thinking about each one and really studied the whole mat at the end.

Her granddaughter Susan said: ‘I thought it was amazing to get a sense of what Grandma is thinking.  This may be silly but I actually felt really moved by it!  It’s so hard to get any sense out of Grandma these days so it was really fascinating to get an insight into her thoughts.’