Socratic Questioning Through a Disability Lens
a teaching sheet.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the session, participants should be able to:

• Summarise the evidence on Socratic questioning.
• Identify six ways disability changes the method: pace, abstraction, unspoken answers, trauma, accurate beliefs and power.
• Practise an adapted sequence of guided discovery.

Before the session

• Participants need: no prior reading.
• You need: this sheet. The Socratic Questioning Through a Disability Lens page has more depth if you want it.
• Preparation time: about 45 minutes the first time.
• Materials: the case, the worked example and the worksheet below, shared in advance in accessible formats.

Key ideas

• A 2015 narrative review found no direct evidence that the method itself is beneficial (Clark & Egan, 2015). Two studies of cognitive therapy for depression have linked more Socratic questioning with greater symptom improvement by the next session, partly through change in thinking (Braun et al., 2015; Vittorio et al., 2022). They show an association, not that the technique causes the improvement.
• Pace and abstraction matter for fatigue, brain injury and processing differences.
• Guidance on CBT with intellectual disability recommends concrete examples, short sentences and visual supports (Hronis et al., 2017).
• Clients who use AAC, write or sign may be read as less insightful in a rapid exchange.
• Questioning an accurate belief as if it were a distortion repeats the experience of being disbelieved.
• When discrimination is actually happening, the work may focus on its impact, the person’s choices, support and protection, rather than on disputing the belief.

Full background: Socratic Questioning Through a Disability Lens.

A session plan

A suggested 60-minute outline. Adapt timings to your group. Say at the start that people can take a break or step out whenever they need to, and add a planned break if the group needs one.

• Opening (10 minutes): ask the group how long they usually wait for an answer before asking again.
• Input (15 minutes): the key ideas above.
• Activity (20 minutes): the case below, in small groups.
• Discussion (10 minutes): the questions below.
• Close (5 minutes): one change each person will try in practice.

Activity: Reading the exchange

Fictional teaching example

Tadhg, 41, uses an AAC device after a brain injury. He has said he thinks his colleagues see him as slow. Read this short exchange, written for teaching:

In threes, check the exchange against these questions. Did the therapist allow enough time for an answer? Check what Tadhg meant? Offer other ways to answer, such as yes/no or writing? Ask what actually happens at work before questioning the belief? Agree with Tadhg what the questioning is for? Then rewrite the therapist’s turns together.

Please don’t ask participants to act as an AAC user. Acting out a disability for a few minutes can give a misleading picture of living with it. Work from the written exchange instead.

Worked example: the exchange, rewritten

Facilitator commentary. The rewrite waits, offers a choice of how to answer, checks meaning and treats Tadhg’s report as evidence. Because the belief may be accurate, the work shifts from disputing it to its impact, his choices, and what support or protection he might want at work.

Facilitator notes: likely answers

What good looks like

• allows enough time and offers ways to answer;
• checks meaning;
• asks what happened before questioning the belief;
• agrees the purpose of the questioning with Tadhg.

Discussion questions

• How do you check whether a belief is accurate before questioning it?
• What signals tell you a client is tired rather than avoiding?
• How would you offer non-verbal ways to answer?
• Who chooses which contradictions get explored?

Work here, pause, change direction

Difficult moments

Short responses for moments that often come up in this kind of session.

Don’t ask disabled participants to argue for whether their own access needs are legitimate.

Common misunderstandings

• “Adapting means questioning less.” It means questioning differently, and with permission.
• “A long silence means resistance.” It may mean thinking, tiredness or composing an answer.

After the session

• Follow-up: in one session this week, each participant deliberately waits longer and offers a choice of how to answer.
• Review: next session, ask what changed in the client’s answers.

Running the session accessibly

• Share materials in advance, in accessible formats, and use captions for any video.
• Build in breaks, and allow people to take part by speaking, writing or listening.
• Assume some participants are disabled. Don’t ask anyone to disclose, or to speak for disabled people as a group.
• Agree how personal material will be handled before the activity.