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We wanted to develop a tool that would give a holistic picture of how a child or young person feels about their lives at home at school and in their communities. We took into account the significant developmental changes that occur from 3 to 17 years and the influence of environmental and personal factors surrounding the child or young person.
We asked our artist to reflect the age and stage of the child in developing a symbol set for:
- Early years
- Primary and
- Secondary
The symbols are organised into three topics:
My Body and Skills: In this section you explore how the child is growing and developing by focussing on the functions of the body as well as skills that are emerging. You can gain an impression of how the child feels he or she is progressing physically, socially, cognitively and behaviourally.
What I do and my support: In this section you look at the child’s lived experience by asking about the activities they participate in, as well as how they feel about the support they receive.
My Wider world: The communities in which children grow up have a significant impact on the well-being of both children and families. In this section you look at the child’s wider world by exploring the impact of nursery or school as well as the support system available to them.
Talking Mats prompts you to cover the relevant topics for each age group you’re working with. You can help children and young people to see their personal strengths and abilities and take time to consider what their problem areas are.
The mind map below shows what is included in the Primary pack – What I do and my support.
If you want to read about how Talking Mats were used to help young people think about targets for their IEP read the 2012 research report.
If you would like the complete Consulting children and young people pack, covering Early years, Primary and Secondary then buy the silver resource which can be purchased either as an original or through a digital subscription.
By Dr Norman Alm, School of Computing, University of Dundee.
Have been thinking for some years – and having dialogues with Joan Murphy – about this : would it be possible to come up with a new type of AAC where both the non-speaking person and their communication partner(s) were equally in joint control of some sort of system? Imagine a touch screen which also could be controlled by switch input. A non-speaking person and their communication partner are both engaged with the screen and both equally making use of it to do … what ?
Don’t know at the moment, but there are several suggestions for ways to explore and develop this idea further. Talking Mats is one.
The purpose is to help the person with communication difficulties express their opinions, with the other participant being a facilitator. But notice what is not happening – a face-to-face interview. Instead both participants look away from each other and focus on the mutual task, manipulating the symbols on the mat to produce the communication. Much less stressful – and much more enjoyable and productive. Another example is the CIRCA system, which supports what is usually problematic communication between a person with dementia and a carer or relative. The support takes the form of touchscreen access to an engaging multimedia display of reminiscence material drawn from public archives. Again a potentially stressful and unproductive face-to-face encounter is converted into an enjoyable mutual activity that flows effortlessly. The design of each of these systems taps into something powerfully motivating. Talking Mats lets the person describe their emotional reactions to a subject, as manifested by the scale which organises the elements on display into a snapshot of that person’s individual feelings. CIRCA makes use of the one faculty still operative even in quite advanced dementia – the ability to recall long-term memories and enjoy sharing them.
Both these systems offer a structured communication encounter in which the structure has the effect of not restricting, but freeing up the communication. Crucially ( I would argue) both free the participants from the direct responsibility of keeping the interaction going and let them share that responsibility with a third agent.
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 )
Cathy Harris Chair of Communication Matters has written this short blog for us
‘It was great to have the Talking Mats team in the exhibition at the Communication Matters Conference this year. We had nearly 400 delegates gathering at Leeds University. The combination of a new venue with excellent accommodation and food combined with the wide ranging programme and exhibition has resulted in us being able to being able to deliver a high quality experience of which we are proud. We are very appreciative of the time which is given in preparation and attendance.
The exhibition, plenary and keynotes are always key to the success of the programme. Paul Maynard MP spoke on the importance to keep lobbying for better services and funding for all people who can benefit from using AAC. Visit www.communicationmatters.org.uk for photos, updates and information about the conference.’
The picture shows Cathy presenting the first ever Alan Martin memorial award to Barry Smith
If you are interested in communication difficulties and want to make sure you are keep abreast of the latest developments in Alternative and Augmentative Communication ( AA C) them make sure you book a place at the conference in Sept 2014 .
On Thursday 12th September Talking Mats we had a great evening as we launched:
- First version of Digital Talking Mats
- New Children and Young People’s resource
- New Health and Well-being resource
- New symbols
- New website
Over 80 people attended the event which took place at the beautiful Stirling College Campus. The speakers gave funny and heart warming short talks about their involvement with Talking Mats.
We were honoured to have Greig McMurchie and Anne McGuire MP to do the official ribbon pulling launch.
Kirsty and Joan demonstrated how to use the app and after this guests mingled and explored the app and the new website.
One of the things I love about Talking Mats is that it can be used by all agencies. When thinking about the rationale behind GIRFEC the main focus is to encourage professionals to work together. It is so refreshing to have a resource that is recognised and used across the agencies.
It is not necessary to have written reports with names of assessments or measures that are a mystery to each other. Talking Mats uses visuals to capture feelings and views. The reporting of those views can be understood by children, parents and professionals.
In developing our new resource we listened and responded to a wide range of professionals. We have researched the Well-being indicators and have provided a tool to give an overview of the issues in the lives of children and young people.
Our vision is to provide a tool to listen to and capture children’s voices. We have a responsibility to be open and realistic about how we respond to what they tell us. Taking time to listen means we need to take time to respond.
We hope that Talking Mats will improve understanding throughout the whole GIRFEC team as we seek to get to the heart of what matters to the child. Margo Mackay
(more…)
Although we are working very hard on developing our app; delivering new products using our new symbols and developing our new website we are not forgetting the need to look after our Customers. As a result Talking Mats is looking hard at how to improve out interaction with our customers and contacts.
To this end we are trialling some new software that should help us all keep up to date with your enquiries and requests. We hope that this will keep us on the ball in all our areas of work from Consulting, to Research, to Training and Products. When the changes come you should not notice any difference, just that you are well served.
Theme 1 from Talking Mats Seminar: How do we vary the top scale?
One of the key skills in using Talking Mats is getting the top scale to reflect the question that you are asking and to be consistent.
WRITE IT DOWN SO YOU CAN STICK TO IT!
The following range of 3 point top scales have been suggested:
like – unsure – dislike
managing – need some help – not managing
very important – quite important – not important
really good at – getting better at – not good at
want – sometimes want – don’t want
calm – unsure – anxious
can do it myself – need a little help – need a lot of help
very easy – quite easy – hard
It was suggested that a way of dealing with a negative topic such as ‘anxiety’ or ‘pain’ was to use a quantitative top scale such as:
a little – some – a lot
Or you could ask what strategies make your pain
better – stays the same – worse
In some situations where the person has an acquired disability, it may be best to do 2 mats, one about liking and another about managing. It was suggested that adapting the mid point to reflect potential loss of skills might be useful:
like – like but can’t do it now – don’t like it
More recently we have found that the following wording works very well for lots of people and situations:
going well – sometimes – not going well
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
I want to go on holiday on my own!
At a recent training Jenn Hall who is a Personalisation Development Worker, told the story of her first use of Talking Mats. She used it with a woman that she has known for some time to discuss her views about her going on holiday. The lady is in her forties and has Downs Syndrome. As she came to the people symbol she looked at it for ages and then placed it in the middle column explaining that she wanted to go on holiday on her own and visit her brother who lives in Spain without her parents. she had never been supported to do this and it was what she really wanted to do. She also put the food in the middle column explaining that it was hard to understand the menus when she was abroad and that she wanted to learn a few basic words in Spanish. Jenn said that the Talking Mats really enabled the lady to express what she wanted not just go along with the status quo and for those around her to appreciate and understand her views . The Talking Mats has supported discussion with the family to enable this lady’s wish to come true . Hopefully she will have her first successful holiday with her brother visiting him all by herself.
