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Basic verbal information/complex verbal information - shoot me down!!
Not come across one of these before, am unaware of any caselaw (probably because the words just have their ‘everyday meaning’) but wanting to check that I’m not missing something obvious.
Client is a 64 year old woman of Jamaican origin. Never went to school - the family were too poor. Came to the UK as an adult in 2001 fleeing a genuine threat to her life in Jamaica. Periods of unstable housing and street homelessness. This information provided as an explanation of why there has never been any formal assessment of whether or not she has a learning disability. She is illiterate but is attending adult literacy classes - and struggles.
I’m currently dealing with her PIP appeal. When trying to establish how frequently she suffers hypos as a result of her type II diabetes, she clearly didn’t understand the word ‘frequency’ - when I tried to explain this by saying it means ‘how often’ she again didn’t understand. When I tried to explain this by saying someone who eats breakfast 5 days a week does so ‘more often’ than someone who eats it only one day a week, I am far from certain she understood. By ‘understand’, I mean conceptually.
When, following on from our discussion about her literacy classes, I asked her to tell me the difference between ‘the cat sat on the mat’ and ‘the cat is sitting on the mat’ she was unable to do so - after a long struggle, she eventually offered that in the second phrase the cat is lying on the mat.
My view is that this is an inability to understand basic verbal information. Yes, I am using two sentences to illustrate the point - but if you don’t understand the difference between them, you don’t understand either.
Shoot me down/pick holes.
(p.s. - I don’t need help with the problems presented by there being no formal diagnosis - I think I can overcome them.)
“Misinterprets verbal or non-verbal communication to the extent of causing distress to himself or herself on a daily basis;” ? ESA
I think what cases like this show is that the “simple sentence / two simple sentences or one complex sentence” terminology is totally useless in a practical sense. By the sounds of it, your client doesn’t have trouble based on the length of the sentence - her difficulties are due to having problems with particular concepts. She is going to have issues whenever those concepts occur, whether in simple or complex sentences.
The cat/mat example is all about the linguistic concept of verb conjugation. This is something which a lot of people find very difficult when picking up a new language. I did about three years of French at secondary school and, even at the height of my ability, I never really got conjugation right unless I had the tables in front of me. “I have” would become “they had” or “he will have” - but setting that aside I could write reasonable essays in French.
There’s an argument I suppose that if you are going to shops and saying “he would like a sandwich” or going to work and saying “how were you?”, you are not communicating to an adequate standard. The counter-argument is that nearly everybody, learning difficulties or no, struggles to learn languages later in life and almost everyone struggles to get verb conjugation down to a decent standard. So there might be a suggestion that her difficulties arise from social rather than medical factors.
The frequency issue sounds more about understanding a concept from real life rather than having difficulties with linguistics. She is being asked to think about her life in the abstract and comment on how regularly things occur. I’d hazard this isn’t something we’re asked to do all that often in real life and it probably taxes less frequently used parts of our brain, but it is something you would expect most people to be able to get to grips with. Off hand, I wouldn’t really know what to make of that.
I do think that making sense of the complex/basic information issue would have to start from thinking about the sorts of sentences which people are likely to come across in their daily lives. I think there will be a temptation for Tribunals to re-write the test as something which makes more sense - “able to exchange pleasantries, buy things from shops and understand when appointments are to be held” vs “able to hold down small talk over five-ten minutes” - but I don’t think that would be legally correct.
I’d say to try and get a handle on which concepts she can work with and which she can’t, give some thought to how those concepts interact with day to day conversation and try to run an argument based on the results. It doesn’t sound hopeless based on what you’ve said.
Hoping that’s vaguely helpful…
Is English English her native language?
Is it a matter of English language vs Jamaican Patois?
The problem is, I suppose, the descriptor presumes there is a written form of the native language.
Where there is no such written form and the claimant has a disability then there is an argument to be had.
Probably.
Logical arguments, but worth remembering the other issue is that illiteracy in itself will not score you points in this category, as you need to link it to the health problem or functional ability. If someone has just not learned to read or write, they will not succeed in this category, nor will they if this is just a language barrier. I’ve got a case in early January which may just hinge on such a distinction as my client has never been able to read or write, but I am arguing that this is because of a learning disability. The HCP (in classic lateral Sherlock Holmes style) suggests that as she was once able to work (over 20 years ago) and also learned to cook using pictures she should have the ability to learn to read a simple sentence or two, and thus does not meet the criteria - 2+2 = 326.
If you can demonstrate that the reason she was struggling to learn to read, as you appear to have clear evidence of this, was as a result of a learning difficulty (though undiagnosed) you should be on relatively solid ground. I would suggest that the “understand” aspect also needs to be as a result of a health condition, but the test is such a low bar…
Of course the tribunal will see her “understanding” in action which may be your best evidence.
Definitely worth a shot, though.
Is it a matter of English language vs Jamaican Patois?
The problem is, I suppose, the descriptor presumes there is a written form of the native language.
Where there is no such written form and the claimant has a disability then there is an argument to be had.
Probably.
I think that the OP was hoping to score points on Activity 7 (verbal information) as well as Activity 8 (written information).
The Patois point is important though as one of the areas where Jamaican Patois differs from English is the way that tenses work so the inability to tell the difference between the two cat sentences may be linguistic rather than conceptual.
As is so often the case with PIP, what the government intended to be clear-cut regulations quickly become very murky. The regulations refer to ‘simple’ single sentences. Is the difference between the two sentences simple (for what it is worth I don’t think so)? Where does “to a reasonable standard” come into it? If a person is unable to fully understand a sentence in the abstract but would understand it in context where does that leave us?
I can’t see the basic information argument working myself. I could see an argument for complex information perhaps assuming the potential linguistic issue is cleared up.
if she is struggling in the classes…..and struggling more than a person typically would without a disability does she need someone trained in communication support to help her?
Thanks all - I’m employed part-time Wednesday to Friday, so haven’t been ignoring the responses.
Though she speaks with a Jamaican accent, it’s not a heavy accent and she doesn’t use a great deal of Patois - (though growing up in South-East London with Jamaican friends I’d get most of it anyway). In other words, I don’t think anyone would struggle to understand her and she’s certainly able to understand some stuff (e.g. I saw her this morning - this was to give her more food bank vouchers following a WCA failure and the termination of her ESA the other week - but she was able to explain to me that because of Xmas the food bank had been giving out larger than usual bags of food to tide people over and so she had enough food, still had two vouchers left and would not need more until the New Year).
I do understand that she’s not going to get any points for understanding written communication on the basis of illiteracy. But what I was getting at was something different - if a person requires communication support to understand basic or complex verbal information due to their learning disability then it would seem to me that their understanding of written information is going to be no better. In other words, whilst illiteracy won’t score you points, neither should it prevent you scoring points for written communication…...
I’ll need to think about other ways of trying to test her ability with spoken language. The point about a second language is well made - I worked as a printer in Paris for a year and by the end of that time found myself very often thinking in French (though my ability to read it write it was no better than it was at the beginning) - but I would still revert to thinking in English for more complex stuff where I didn’t have the French vocabulary to cover it. There may be something similar here with Patois and English…..
My previous answer drifted off the verbal point I agree.
My original thoughts were that the argument appears to be (from the description) with the claimants ability to understand the concept of frequency and tense.
Therefore there’s either a failure to communicate to get the other party to understand the concepts or the claimant just doesn’t understand the concepts.
i.e. the frequency of a sunrise is more than that of a Christmas day or yesterday vs today.
If it’s the latter (having no awareness of) then (I guess) it should be straight forward as words and communication require higher functioning than the concept of days or weeks or birthdays .
If it’s the former (not understanding the words to understand the concept being communicated) then (i suspect) it is less straight forward as this may be the failure to communicate or understand (like what I did) due to other factors rather than an inability to understand basic verbal information due to disability.
It’s one for the tribunal to weigh up.
Thanks. It’s a difficult one because I’m effectively having to try to make some sort of assessment of whether there’s a learning disability myself - when a) I’m not really qualified to do it and b) actually getting an assessment from someone who is qualified is going to be pretty much impossible.
As I say, every professional involved with her seems to think there is a learning disability - her housing solicitor (also employed here) assures me it is very unusual for someone to whom the LA homeless section accepts it has a duty to then be placed straight in sheltered accommodation. I know this is not evidence and I like to think I’ve approached the issue with a reasonable amount of professional scepticism…..
That said, my alarm bells went off when it proved impossible to explain the concept of ‘frequency’ to her by using phrases like ‘you do it lots’ or ‘you don’t do it very much’ and my feeling that she didn’t really understand the ideas of past and present. Also the case that her guess at the correct amount of change from a very simple financial transaction was wildly inaccurate…..