In the study of communication, meaning-making may be explained as a process consisting of collaborative and distributed actions between participants in interaction. This view is of special importance in communication with individuals living with deafblindness. Staff working in group housing for people with congenital deafblindness can be considered as communication partners. Using a qualitative and explorative design, 18 communication partners have been individually interviewed concerning their perceptions of strategies to facilitate social interaction with adults with congenital deafblindness. The interviews were transcribed and analysed using content analysis. The analyses generated three categories of perceived strategies 1) having essential competence and qualities, 2) getting to know and understand each other, 3) use of facilitating techniques. The results indicate that staff continuity in homes for people with deafblindness is key for the well-being of the people cared for. Combinations of perceived experiences from interviews, and forthcoming video-ethnographic observations, may form the basis of training programs.

Introduction: People with congenital deafblindness (CDB) face challenges orienting themselves in time and activities. The aim of the current study is to identify and analyze how an adult with CDB and his support persons co-construct comprehensibility and predictability in his daily life. Method: The study consists of video recordings of everyday dyadic interaction from a residential home. Conversation Analysis was used to explore interactional practices that afford orientation in time and activities. Results: Results highlight several important practices: 1) repetitions of signs or other recognizable linguistic elements in a second turn to identify and confirm a reciprocally understood subject; 2) repetition of a sign placed first in the second part of a question- answer adjacency pair; 3) and the use of a visually based schedule to achieve mutual understanding. Conclusion: The practices identified and analyzed accomplish security, predictability, and comprehensibility for the person with CDB and his support persons.

The Swedish Communication Facilitation Service “Taltjänst” provides support to people with communication disorders, commonly caused by neurological disabilities, and their conversation partners. This study aims to investigate interaction within ”Taltjänst”, focusing on facilitator interventions by exploring; 1) When do facilitators intervene? 2) When do the primary conversation participants manage the conversation without facilitator support? Multimodal interaction/ Conversation analytical methods were used to analyse two phone calls involving a facilitator and clients with communication disorders. One client had congenital dysarthria, while the other had acquired aphasia, allowing for comparison of the interactional challenges faced by the facilitator when addressing different disorders. The analyses revealed that; 1) facilitators are commonly invited to intervene by their client’s eye gaze, and 2) there is a routine of intervening after every non-interrupted turn of the client with dysarthria, while the intervention pattern for the client with aphasia is more varied. These findings provide insights into the work of communication facilitators, and anyone supporting phone calls involving participants with a communication disorders. Furthermore, an increased understanding of interactional practices can contribute to the development of this essential, yet underexplored service.

Det här kapitlet handlar om tvärkulturella möten inom äldreomsorgen och den betydelse som språk och kommunikation spelar för bemötande, goda relationer och personcentrerad omsorg. I kapitlet belyses situationer där omsorgsgivare och omsorgstagare har begränsningar i fråga om hur mycket gemensamt språk de talar. Förmågan att kommunicera kan dessutom vara påverkad om en person har en demenssjukdom. Flerspråkighet i relation till äldreomsorg och demenssjukdom förknippas inte sällan med problem och utmaningar. I det här kapitlet diskuteras dels olika utmaningar, dels olika sätt på vilka omsorgsgivare och omsorgstagare ofta med ganska små medel ändå kan kommunicera väl, trots olika begränsningar i språklig förmåga. Vi som skriver detta kapitel är språkvetare. Kapitlet handlar därmed i stor utsträckning om språkliga och kommunikativa aspekter av tvärkulturella möten inom äldreomsorgen utifrån studiet av verkliga samtalssituationer. Den språkvetenskapliga ansatsen gör att vi kan visa på detaljer i kommunikation som ibland tas för givna, eller som ofta sker så snabbt och omedvetet att vi inte hinner upptäcka eller reflektera över dem. Likafullt kan de spela en stor och avgörande roll för hur en kommunikationssituation utvecklas och vilka relationer som etableras mellan dem som samtalar. I vissa fall kan de också förklara varför något inte fungerar på det sätt som samtalsdeltagarna önskat.

Multimodal interaktionsanalys används och har relevans för den slags sociala samspel som ofta benämns med termen atypisk interaktion. Med detta menas interaktion som involverar en eller flera samtalsdeltagare som i något avseende, exempelvis till följd av en kommunikativ funktionsnedsättning inte har möjlighet att kommunicera på samma sätt som en person utan funktionsnedsättning. Termen atypisk är naturligtvis inte okomplicerad, eftersom den implicerar att något skulle vara mer normalt och att atypisk interaktion därmed skulle vara onormal. Det är inte så termen ska tolkas här. Atypisk interaktion är socialt samspel i sin egen rätt, men sker under förutsättningar där någon persons språkliga eller kognitiva förmågor på något vis är nedsatta.

This study explores how manners of mediation, and the use of embodiment in interpreter-mediated conversation have an impact on tests of cognitive functioning in a dementia evaluation. By a detailed analysis of video recordings, we show how participants—an occupational therapist, an interpreter, and a patient—use embodied practices to make the tasks of a test of cognitive functioning intelligible, and how participants collaboratively put the instructions of the tasks into practice. We demonstrate that both instructions and instructed actions—and the whole procedure of accomplishing the tasks—are shaped co-operatively by embodied practices of all three participants involved in the test situation. Consequently, the accomplishment of the tasks should be viewed as the outcome of a collaborative achievement of instructed actions, rather than an individual product. The result of the study calls attention to issues concerning interpretations of, and the reliability of interpreter-mediated tests and their bearings for diagnostic procedures in dementia evaluations.