Enhancing description and interpretation of qualitative interviews with people with intellectual disabilities through nonverbal and paraverbal data collection and analysis

Background: Qualitative research involving interviews typically includes transcribing verbal data. However, insights about meaning can also be ascertained from nonverbal and paraverbal communications. Transcribing nonverbal data allows researchers to include and analyze this additional data whilst ensuring participants' confidentiality. 

Methods: Six participants with intellectual disabilities were interviewed using Talking Mats as a communication tool to support data collection. The verbal, nonverbal, and paraverbal data were transcribed using a notation system and analysed using triangulation. 

Findings: Most of the nonverbal communications corroborated the spoken word; however, nonverbal and paraverbal communication also captured additional information, which added depth, shared understanding, and expanded the insights into the research process or refuted the spoken word, which in turn provided new insights. 

Conclusions: This paper presents a method to analyse verbal, nonverbal and paraverbal data to provide depth and new or more accurate meaning and highlights benefits of including nonverbal communication in research.