Not
being a pyscologist but having to infer this from first principles I would
suppose the following hypothesis
That
lacking feedback from conversation, and not having the otheres speech patterns
in order to modify ones own speech to what might be mutually appropriate, one
defaults to something else by assuming that the usual experience of
communicating with one who is non verbal, is with one who is pre
verbal.
Does
that make any sence?
At our facility which serves persons with cerebral
palsy, Lesch-Nyhan disease, and other neurodevelopmental disorders, we have
been training medical students and other healthcare professionals-in-training
to interact effectively with their patients who are nonverbal due to
developmental disorders. In that process, we constantly observe the
medical students adopting a high pitched tone of voice and child-like manner
of speech even when the students are informed that their patients are normal
or near normal in cognitive ability.
I'm interested in doing a series of studies, involving both
voice analysis and measurement of implicit attitudes using the Implicit
Association Test, to look at the degree to which healthcare professionals
associate disability with child-like characteristics and the degree to which
this association might be evidenced in their interactions with patients or
prospective patients who have disabilities.
I'm sure there must be a literature out there on
infantilization of persons with disabilities in social interactions, but I
haven't been able to locate it using PsychInfo, Medline, or other databases
(at least not with the keywords I've been using). Can anyone suggest a
lead or two?
Thanks much,
Ken Robey
Matheny Institute for Research in Developmental
Disabilities