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Guidelines for communicating with our most elderly.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

It is crucial that we pay increasing attention to the specific needs of the expanding aging population. Based on an increasing number of elderly clients requiring assisted-living residences, the expanding costs of care, and the inability of many seniors to anticipate and express their needs, our research centered on the question, How could facilities and care-providers most effectively communicate information with their elderly residents in order to deliver quality care? One effective answer would be to design a system congruent with the learning styles of residents.

Learning Style101

Learning style is the way in which each person concentrates on, processes, and retains new and difficult information. Rita and Kenneth Dunn (Dunn, 1993) identified 21 dements as influencing how people learn (see Figure 1). Our findings indicate that learning style significantly influences the elderly and enables us to improve care with cost-effective strategies. See

During the past 35 years, Professors Rita and Kenneth Dunn have developed several age appropriate assessments that identify individuals' reaction to each of their 21 learning-style elements. After administration of the appropriate assessment, a profile indicates those elements that are Strong Preferences, Preferences, Non Preferences, Opposite Preferences, and Strong Opposite Preferences--each person's learning style. To capitalize on their learning style, people need to be made aware of their:

1. reactions to the immediate environment while learning--sound versus silence; bright versus nonconformity, and preference for structure versus choices;

2. sociological preferences for learning--alone, with peers, with either a collegial or authoritative adult, and/or in a variety of ways as opposed to patterns or routines;

3. physiological characteristics--perceptual strengths (auditory, visual, tactual, and/or kinesthetic strengths), time-of-day energy levels, intake (snacking while concentrating), and/or mobility needs; and

4. global versus analytic versus integrated processing styles (see Figure 1).

We examined several major learning style models to compare ways in which they were similar, and different from the Dunn and Dunn Model's characteristics listed above. The Model is multidimensional in that it covers 5 stimuli groups and 21 elements (see Figure 1). The following instruments: Productivity Environmental Preference Survey (PEPS), Learning Style Inventory (LSI), and Business Excellence (BE) are employed, based on age, in order to identify the learner's style. This allows complementary teaching techniques to be applied. Research over three decades has established a logical principle. The closer one teaches to the particular learning style of the individual, the greater the learning and retention (see www.learningstyles.net).

The National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) model pioneered by Dr. James Keefe includes the five stimuli plus study skills cognitive dimensions as a major component. The NASSP instrument is the Learning Style Profile (DeBello).

One of the earliest learning styles theorists was Joseph Hill, who developed the Cognitive Style Profile in which cultural influences are among 15 elements. He framed learning style as the way in which individuals search for meaning (DeBello).

The Cognitive Style Delineators developed by Charles Letteri views learning as information processing, in which high achievers are analytical and low achievers are global. Letteri's model focuses on seven different cognitive dimensions, identified by the Cognitive Style Delineator (DeBello).

Manuel Ramirez developed the Child Rating Form; he defines learning in terms of cognitive style and is similar to Letteri in recognizing field dependence and independence. Ramirez views independence as positive, global rather than analytical (DeBello).

In addition there are learning style guides, rather than full models, such as the Visual, aural, read-write, and kinesthetic (Vark). The Vark Learning Style Inventory utilizes a 13 question assessment in order to determine learner's preference. The focus is on the taking-in, and out-takes of information in a learning context (http://www.Vark-learn.com/English/index.asp).

Over...

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