Involving Clinical Staff in the Design of a Support Tool to Improve Dental Communication for Patients with Intellectual Disabilities
Rachel Menzies, Daniel Herron, Lesley Scott, Ruth Freeman, Annalu Waller · 2013 · Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS) · doi:10.1145/2513383.2513407
Summary
This poster paper describes a design workshop conducted as part of the "Stories at the Dentist" project, which aims to develop a computer-based support tool to help people with intellectual disabilities (ID) better understand dental procedures. Visiting the dentist can cause significant anxiety and stress for patients with ID, who may have difficulty communicating with dental staff and understanding the treatment process. This can result in patients being cut off from healthcare in ways that people without disabilities are not. Current communication strategies in dental settings include simplified vocabulary, symbols, image-based information, and social stories. The project takes a user-centered design approach, involving clinical dental staff from special care dentistry settings at a workshop held at the University of Dundee. The workshop explored the potential interface of the support tool, with the goal of improving communication between clinicians and patients and enabling patients to be more involved in their own dental care decisions.
Key findings
The design workshop with clinical staff revealed important considerations for the support tool interface. Dental professionals from special care settings provided insights into the practical communication challenges they face when treating patients with ID, and how a computer-based tool could address these challenges. The emphasis on communication in UK dental education — both in undergraduate study and professional training — underscores the clinical importance of this work. Existing resources like NHS Plymouth's "Going to the Dentist" booklet demonstrate the value of visual and narrative approaches, but the project aims to go further with an interactive computer-based solution. The user-centered design process involved multiple participant groups — clinical staff, patients with ID, and families/carers — each contributing different perspectives to the design. The clinical staff workshop specifically informed how the tool's interface should accommodate the realities of clinical practice.
Relevance
This research addresses healthcare accessibility for people with intellectual disabilities — a population that frequently faces barriers to accessing routine medical and dental care. The communication gap between clinicians and patients with ID is a significant equity issue: when patients cannot understand procedures or express their concerns, they lose control over their own healthcare decisions. The "Stories at the Dentist" project represents a practical application of assistive technology to bridge this gap, using familiar concepts like social stories in a digital format. For accessibility practitioners, the key lesson is that accessible communication tools must be designed with input from all stakeholders — not just end users, but also the professionals who will use the tools in clinical settings. The paper is a brief workshop report, so detailed findings and the resulting tool design are limited, but it contributes to the growing body of work on technology-mediated healthcare accessibility.
Tags: intellectual disability · healthcare accessibility · communication · user-centered design · clinical communication · social stories · dental care