People with learning disabilities help us to ask good questions

Being asked a question which enquires into your experiences, ideas or identity is a communication that, in the eyes of the other, you have value, matter and are included. In our work with people with learning disabilities, a heterogenous group of people often at risk of marginalisation, a systemic approach calls into question some taken-for-granted realities of people’s lives.

In writing, we have chosen to use the term ‘people with learning disabilities’ to describe a group of people about whom many different terms have been used over time. The label of ‘learning disabilities’ is socially constructed and usually given, by professionals, in a context of delineating access to services (Nunkoosing, 2019). It is rarely the way in which people describe themselves. Indeed, they may prefer to foreground one of the many other aspects which make up their identity (Lynggaard & Livingston, 2011).
In a UK context, a diagnosis or label of ‘learning disabilities’ is given when a person is considered to meet three criteria:
• significant impairment of intellectual functioning;
• significant impairment of adaptive behaviour; and
• onset before adulthood
(British Psychological Society, 2015).

We have both worked with people with learning disabilities, their families, carers and networks for many years. In our work, we share an orientation to systemic theories and practices. Coming together to write created an opportunity to pause and reflect on the ways in which the people with whom we work have helped us to develop our use of questions.
The people who are referred to our services experience differences in cognitive ability, in communication and may also be neurodivergent. This context reminds us that ‘clever and complex’ questions are likely not better questions. Good questions are those which fit the person’s way of being in the world, and working towards finding this fit is something we can only do with their help (and often their patience!). Our attention is therefore continually drawn to how we might slow the pace, create contexts of trust and collaboration and think about our intentions in inquiry.
The evolution of our practice in asking questions reflects the range of settings and relationships our work encompasses. We use questions with families, with staff teams, with networks, with colleagues, in supervision and our own inner dialogue. In the present paper we share some of our learning and offer some categories of questions which may in turn stimulate future thinking and development.