Making focus groups accessible and inclusive for people with communication disabilities: a research note.

Trevisan, Filippo

Participating in focus groups can be challenging for people with communication disabilities. Given that more than 1 in 10 adults has a communication disability, focus groups that overlook their needs exclude a large part of the population. This research note makes a unique contribution toward creating more inclusive focus groups by discussing a variety of strategies employed in a recent study of political participation among Americans with disabilities that included a high proportion of participants with communication disorders. Universal design principles can support the "mainstreaming" of communication disabilities in focus group research, contributing to more inclusive and representative social science scholarship.

UNIVERSAL design; FOCUS groups; FACILITATED communication; COMMUNICATIVE disorders; MAINSTREAMING in special education; QUALITATIVE research; DECISION making; PEOPLE with disabilities; NEEDS assessment

Qualitative Research, 2021, Vol 21, Issue 4, p619

1468-7941

Academic Journal

10.1177/1468794120941846