Training Healthcare Professionals to Work With People With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.

Adams et al. (2021) asked 155 U.S. healthcare workers how ready they feel to treat people with intellectual or developmental disabilities. The team used an online survey to rate comfort, experience, and competence for different disability groups.

They also asked which training methods the staff found most useful.

Workers felt most prepared for patients with autism or intellectual disability. They felt least ready for patients who are deaf-blind.

Daily hands-on contact beat single workshops. Staff said real-life practice with patients built skill faster than classroom lectures.

The result lines up with Smith et al. (1997) and Burack et al. (2004). Those earlier GP surveys in Australia also found communication trouble and lack of ID training.

Marrus et al. (2023) shows the gap still exists. Their 2023 survey of psychiatry directors found residents get almost no ASD/ID hours. The message is the same across decades: formal training is thin.

Dai et al. (2023) extends the story to adult outpatients. Three-quarters of doctors now speak only to caregivers, not to the adult with ID. Daily contact may boost comfort, yet the system still sidesteps direct patient talk.

You can use these findings when you consult with medical teams. Offer brief in-vivo shadowing or co-treatment instead of one-off lunch-and-learns. Model how to speak directly to the patient while you teach staff. Small doses of real-time contact may do more than slide decks ever could.