Niamh Holland

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the Psychological Society of Ireland’s Diploma in Professional Psychology (Clinical)

Keywords:Sexuality • Learning Disability • Attitudes

Much of the research to date has focussed on staff and parents’ attitudes to the sexuality of service users. A second major focus has been on keeping people safe, and the prevention of abuse. But there has been little attention paid in the research to the individual’s right to a healthy knowledge of their own sexuality or to expressing their sexuality in a healthy way. There was a particular need to explore this topic with service users themselves.

This study, using the SSKAAT – R instrument, explores the knowledge and attitudes of 40 men and women with mild and moderate levels of intellectual disability (ID) between the ages of 21 and 45 towards aspects of their sexuality. The aim of the study was to determine the impact that level of ID or gender has on sexuality, and also to highlight areas of deficit in adults’ sexual knowledge with the aim of designing appropriate sexuality education to address these gaps.

The findings indicated that adults with a mild level of ID had significantly greater knowledge than adults with a moderate level of ID, but no significant difference was found between men and women. With regard to attitudes little variation was found between the attitudes of men and women in either level of ability. Adults in this sample demonstrated a good level of knowledge in relation to appropriate and inappropriate touch and the need for sexual touch to be consensual indicating they have a reasonable knowledge of how to protect themselves. However, there were several areas where adults showed considerable deficits in their knowledge. Of note was the significant gap in adults knowledge relating to their sexual health and their knowledge of how to access appropriate supports.