What do we mean by people with learning difficulties?

At People First (Self Advocacy), when we talk about people with learning difficulties, we mean ‘people labelled as having a learning difficulty’. This is one of the labels that society puts on us to mark us out as not being able to understand things the same as other people. People First (Self Advocacy) is set up for people labelled as having a learning difficulty.

At People First we do not think in terms of medical labels like ‘autism’ or ‘Down’s syndrome’.  We don’t look at what doctors say is ‘wrong with us’. We look at people’s support needs. All people have different kinds of support needs – some people need a shoulder to cry on every now and again, some people needs help understanding instruction manuals, some people need a push to get out of a chair.

Some people need particular kinds of learning support day to day for reading and writing, remembering and understanding long words and complicated ideas. At People First (Self Advocacy) we make sure that the people who work here get the support they need to do their jobs. Workers need learning support but the supporters providing the learning support will have their own support needs too, for example flexible working hours if they have children or a sign language interpreter if they are deaf.

Why learning difficulty and not learning disability? >>

What is Self Advocacy? >>