Published on 12, July, 2020
I'm the voluntary curator of a local community museum. We are already dementia-friendly, many people in our small town are learning Makaton and we are becoming more dyslexia-aware as we gradually replace our signage.
I would like to produce a Welcome Guide for schools and parents and need advice from you - the experts- on what needs to go into it. There are so many things we cannot change like the fluorescent strip lighting but at least we can warn people of what they can expect on a visit.
Any advice gratefully received - Thank you!
Welcome from a local-museum-o-phile (is there a word for that?!)
Firstly, it's great to see you here looking for some advice "from the horse's mouth". I actually think that there's quite an overlap with dementia-friendliness here; changes made to our local supermarket for their dementia-friendly campaign certainly made it more comfortable for me to visit. The cognitive effects on memory, language, spacial awareness, and attention are not dissimilar; so you're probably doing quite a lot right already. You may just need to point out to staff that those adaptions are not exclusively useful to elderly people.
For your guide and signage, I suggest using images where you can instead of, or in addition to, text. Many autistic people process thoughts internally using mental images rather than thinking in words, so will find information presented that way much easier to comprehend (dyslexia is also relatively common for autistic people; so again, you're on the right track already!) Due to sensory sensitivities, many of us have a rather extreme startle reflex too, so it would be worth marking on a floor-plan etc. where there might be, for example, noisy or moving interactive exhibits which other visitors might trigger without warning. It's almost impossible to think of every sensitivity, though; for example, people with misophonia can have trouble with incredibly specific sounds, even if they're not very loud. So what you may be best doing is to point out any obvious general issues (e.g. fluorescents, noisy machinery) and that you are disability-aware, and then give some contact details for visitors or carers to contact you if they have any specific concerns.
And finally, where you can, do let us know where we can get further information about your exhibits. When local history is one of your autistic "special interests", there's nothing more frustrating than having your interest piqued and then struggling to satiate the desire to know more! Details of local history groups, source books, archaeology archives, etc. in a guide (or website, if you have one) are something I always appreciate!
Thank you so much for this, Here is the link to our museum page on the local tourism website. There are links to Twitter and Facebook which I try to keep up to date as much as possible.We only got started last August and have been rather overwhelmed with donations and loans from the local community. We are also constrained by the premises which gives us just one big room that we are not allowed to mess with. Where possible, you'll find links to local history via the folk we are following on Twitter.
We have also been advised by a visitor with dyspraxia to put more signage to stop confusion so we are experimenting with stick on foot prints, etc.
If everyone is happy, I'd like to keep in touch via this forum with updates.
visitknighton.co.uk/.../
That's a really nicely presented website, it was nice to find some general history of the area, and to see so many different activities going on. It's fantastic that you've had so much community support. I'll have to pop in if I'm in that neck of the woods.
Loved the Offa puns, by the way!