Go ahead... make my day!: children with PMLD can have their own say: life satisfaction for children with profound and multiple learning difficulties

Like most people who work with and for individuals with profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD), I strive to improve their quality of life. My earlier research (Lyons, 2000) culminated in the development of the Life Satisfaction Matrix for assessing and improving the life satisfaction of individuals with PMLD. My current PhD research (nearing completion!) sought to address a more basic problem: Can the life satisfaction of children with PMLD be discerned? Two key research questions emerged: What is life satisfaction for these children? How do we learn about their life satisfaction? I hoped that the findings from this research would support the core assumptions that underpinned the Life Satisfaction Matrix. My continuing research agenda aims to substantiate the rigour of this instrument/ procedure, and hopefully see it put into practice. This article describes and explains the research findings relating to the first research question: What is life satisfaction for children with PMLD? The findings may not be 'surprising' but I hope they are interesting, and confirm some of what many intuitively feel and believe about this phenomenon.