Depicting Dementia: Representations of Cognitive Health and Illness in Ten Picturebooks for Children

Abstract

It is estimated that a third of children know someone living with dementia, and there are now many picturebooks for young children that help to explain the changes dementia can bring to family life. Despite their number, there has been little examination of what these books communicate about health and illness. To address this, the current study presents a close visual and textual analysis of 10 recent picturebooks in English that aim to teach children about dementia. Our analysis reveals that in these books dementia is exclusively framed in terms of ageing, and as an illness of older adults. Furthermore, the books rely heavily on mechanistic metaphors to explain the causes of dementia. However, at the same time the "still the same person" narrative is dominant. This narrative emphasises the importance of foregrounding the unique history and personality of the person living with dementia, and offers a way to help children to continue meaningful relationships with their relatives. These books employ often ageist tropes of decline in the depiction of dementia and yet at the same time support a narrative of ongoing personhood, reflecting the complexity of broader social discourses around dementia and selfhood.

The (in)accuracies of floating leaves: How people with varying experiences of dementia differently position the same visual metaphor

“…Yet, metaphors are also manifest in a range of non-verbal communicative modes, including gesture, images, sound and film ( Forceville & Urios-Aparisi, 2009 ; Semino & Demjén, 2016 ). Only recently has the role of visual metaphors in communicating and shaping understandings of dementia begun to be seriously considered (see Brookes et al, 2018 ; Caldwell et al, 2021 ; Harvey & Brookes, 2019 ; Schweda, 2019 ), and the author is currently not aware of any studies that directly consult people affected by dementia about this topic. Likewise, many influential guidelines on the language used when discussing dementia consult people mostly about verbal, rather than visual representations ( Alzheimer’s Society, 2018 ; Bould, 2018 ; DEEP, 2014 ; YoungDementia UK, 2020 ).…”

“…Thelker’s ‘Neuron Forest’ metaphor reflects the common trend to map trees/plants onto the brain. In an analysis of picture books, Caldwell et al (2021) establish how a visual plant metaphor simplifies a biomedical explanation of dementia by using weeds growing in a garden to represent increasing tangles in the brain. Just as the weed illustration is evaluated as appropriate for young children, the visual metaphor that this paper examines (see Figure 1 ) is found across not only media articles (most recently, The Conversation : Weaver, 2021 ) but a range of materials advocating for or directed at people with dementia.…”

Little bugs and wicked viruses: Communicating the COVID-19 pandemic through picturebooks for children

“…The detailed analysis used a mixed-method approach (Johnson et al 2007), which involved both literary analysis of the words and image-word assemblages on page-spreads and a content analysis of images of coronaviruses and health messages contained within the books (Ali 2012;Caldwell et al 2020). We adopted a close-reading approach in our independent analysis of each picturebook, paying particular attention to setting, characterisation, plot and metaphor.…”

“…Images have the potential to convey powerful emotional content (Nikolajeva 2012) and can help facilitate discussions about the fears and anxieties felt by people living with particular conditions and their families (Hanson et al 2017;McNicol 2014;McNicol 2016). It is worth noting, however, that images in children's books are not straightforward and that the complex interplay between text and image may present challenges for communicating health information (Caldwell et al 2020;Sakai et al 2012).…”

Rumor Has it: “Dementia” A Discourse-Analytical Analysis of Obituaries of People With Dementia

“…In their sample, dementia was personified, and described as a separate (negative) entity, disconnected from the PWD. Caldwell et al (2021) researched the depiction of dementia in picture books for children, where they not only found stigmatic tropes of decline, but also a narrative of "ongoing personhood", that is, a confirmation of the identity of PWD, which counters the stigmatic representation of PWD as lost to their families and friends (Van Gorp & Vercruysse, 2011). These studies show that stigma is omnipresent in discourse on dementia.…”