The Use of Sensors to Improve Communication for Persons With Intellectual Disability Who Cannot Communicate Unequivocally

Heart rate (HR) is considered to reflect a persons autonomic response to situations, whether external (what happens around us) or internal (pain or pleasure, joy or fear). Some persons with severe intellectual disability or comprehensive cerebral palsy or childhood autism cannot communicate unequivocally, either because they lack the cognitive prerequisites and language or because they lack control over their muscles used for speech.

The investigators believe that these persons, through their heart rate, as registered with a commercially available chest belt or wrist watch, may communicate something about their well being and their reactions, preferences, aversions and fears.

Many persons with intellectual disability, comprehensive cerebral palsy or childhood autism (the participants in this study) have sleep problems, but these may go unnoticed. Participants often have a fixed schedule for the day, and this is carried out irrespective of the shape they are in, e.g. irrespective of how well they have slept the night before. The challenges may then be too much for a sleep-deprived person, and frustration and even self harm and aggressive behavior may be the result. With the use of a respiration monitor that assesses sleep from the person's breathing pattern, the person in question may be able to communicate to her/his caregivers how the previous night's sleep was.

Information about heart rate and sleep may contribute to better care and health services for persons who are unable to communicate unequivocally because of intellectual disability, autism and/or cerebral palsy.