Sound Therapy

According to an article in today’s Irish Medical Times, wanting to walk is one of the most common challenging behaviours. Doctors were discussing the treatment of elderly patients in hospitals in Ireland and Dr. Cillian Twomey, consultant physician in Geriatric Medicine, Cork University Hospital, gave the example of a man with dementia who liked to […]

Is it any coincidence that very helpful organisations have been set up by parents of children with disabilities, seeking to plug the gap they’ve experienced in the help that’s available. The Henry Spink Foundation is one (see the last post) and the Challenging Behaviour Foundation is another.

I just happened to hear Henrietta Spink talking to John Humphrys in On The Ropes on Radio 4. Listening to her story I was amazed that I’d never heard of her before. She’s the mother of two severely, but differently, disabled sons now in their late teens who has battled for the rights of carers. […]

Here’s a glimpse of the work that goes into making the Music Gym happen every Friday in Hastings. The backing track is one of Tom’s - Don’t Bring Shame on the Family - but as the slideshow ends before the vocals start the title won’t make any sense….
For more information, please visit www.decoda.org

For a long time we’ve wanted to enable others to use our methods to engage people with profound disabilities in meaningful activities. Now we can do that, through our offshoot organisation - Responsive Environments Ltd.

We all agree and know that we really do want the very best in terms of quality of life for people with learning disabilities and especially those with complex needs. Decoda grew out of my experiences in a local home and day centre and the firm belief that there had to be an alternative to […]

Turning out the filing cabinet today I found a pile of blank self-evaluation forms from our days of running courses funded by the Learning and Skills Council. They were always a mystery to us as the people we worked with didn’t speak and certainly couldn’t read or write. So how were they supposed to fill […]

I had a rare opportunity last week to try out the Music gym, as I’m usually in the cafe area, explaining it to someone instead. I’d forgotten just how much fun it is.

At Decoda we don’t claim to be authorities but we are observant. We’ve seen the impact of what we do on people with ASD (autistic spectrum disorder) though we can’t necessarily explain it.

Decoda’s a social enterprise. The problem is that the vast majority of people still say A what when told that. I’m curious as to why that is. It’s such a wonderful concept, bringing together the best of the charity and business worlds. The idea behind it is that you operate as a business but with […]