Many residents don’t understand spans of time. This can make waiting for an hour or a week challenging to someone who is disabled (waiting 5 minutes is the same as waiting a week). For the group home support staff that is doing the care giving, it can be very frustrating to be constantly asked “when are we going?”.
Ways to help a mentally/developmentally disabled person learn time references:
- Less than an hour-number of songs, write down time to match on a clock (digital is easier than traditional clocks), time it takes to walk 2 blocks and back
- An hour or more-number of TV shows, a movie length
- Days or weeks-a calender with days marked off, a box with marbles or large wood beads where one marble or bead is removed each day untill the box is empty (the day of the event)
During the education process of teaching a disabled group home resident references for spans of time, don’t answer them when they ask “when”. Respond in the following ways when they ask “when ?”:
- Ask resident, “how do you think you can find out the answer yourself?”
- If resident answers and uses the time reference that is being taught give lots of positive reinforcement and repeatedly comment how smart the resident is because he or she figured it out
- If the resident looks lost and has no answer attempt a few prompts with questions like “what show are we going to watch and wait until it is over?” or “how many songs are going to play before we leave?” or “lets check the calendar”
- If the resident is more severely disabled, patiently repeat the time reference as often as needed
Questions not only stimulate brain functions and encourage problem solving skill development, it promotes self-confidence in the resident when they are able to come up with the answers instead of being dependent on group home support staff for answers.
When implementing ways that a resident can refer to time spans in a way that they can understand, be patient. Allow an adequate trial period before changing to a different time span reference. If something doesn’t work, try something new. Brainstorm with fellow group home support staff. Be creative.
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