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Communication Problems Between Researchers and Informants With Speech Difficulties: Methodological and Analytic Issues

University of New Brunswick

Using data collected in a study of how people living with Parkinson's disease assess the efficacy of the alternative and complementary therapies they use, the author addresses the impact on qualitative data collection and analysis of communication problems between researchers and informants who experience speech difficulty. There is little literature that deals with these issues. In what little does, the emphasis is most often on the "problem" informants who experience speech difficulty present for communication, rather than seeing communication problems as a product of interviewer/informant interaction in which the researcher also plays a role in hindering communication. In this article, the author argues that a focus on the linguistic inability of informants, however unwitting, constructs the person who experiences difficulty speaking as problematic and the researcher as the "expert" who solves the communication problem the informant presents.

Key Words: communication problems • interviewing • qualitative methods • Parkinson's disease • chronic illness • disability

Field Methods, Vol. 18, No. 2, 153-171 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1525822X05285843


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