ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on health professionals’ consultations with children and young people with learning difficulties. There is an overview of helpful techniques for health professionals consulting with children and young people with special needs. It explores in depth the authors’ work with children and young people with severe learning difficulties and the techniques used to communicate with them. It further examines the different dynamics of consulting with children and young people as patients and the roles of parents, carers and siblings. United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) Article 12
States Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.
Article 13The child shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child’s choice.
