you might want to look at phoebe caldwell
intensive interaction
Sorry probably a bit to much info a summay of intensive interaction below, but essentially the idea is when you spend time with you niece, let her take the lead and then you copy her - For example, in answer to a sound, ?er-er? I might make the same sound, ?er-er? (imitation). Or I might make the same sound but elongate it, ?eerrr?, or shift the pitch up or down, or lift it at the end (a good way of asking a question). I might alter the rhythm. Or I might shift the mode, answering the sound with a tap, or draw the shape of the sound on their arm. All of which gives the brain something it recognises but also, a slight ?jolt? ? ?that?s something I recognise but it?s slightly different?.
My sisters have been great, the fact they aspect ds (HFA), they do not do anything special, but accept him and allow him to be who he is. Like bagpuss we did not know where ds was, but between ages 4-5 he came on loads. But we had early intervention (www.portage.org.uk/) which really made the difference.
Intensive Interaction is an approach for teaching communication skills to children and adults who have autism, severe learning difficulties and profound and multiple learning difficulties who are still at early stages of development. The approach focuses on teaching the Fundamentals of Communication ? the communication concepts and performances that precede speech development, though it may include many people who have some speech and language development.
Intensive Interaction was developed during the 1980s by teachers working in schools in long-stay hospitals in southern England. The development of the approach came about partly as a result of practitioners questing for effective teaching approaches and partly as a reaction to and move away from the dominance of behavioural psychology in the field.
The techniques of teaching borrow from understandings as to how infants in the first two years carry out the learning of these highly complicated, critical concepts and abilities. The mass of research on babies learning in interactions with adults that has arisen since the mid 1970s, allows some simple pedagogical insights. Babies gradually accrue these complex performances by taking part in many successive, cumulative interactions with the adults around them. The main learning motivation for both participants is the mutual enjoyment of the interaction. The natural adult style is to construct the interaction basically, mostly, by allowing the baby to lead with her behaviour, with the adult building the content and a flow by responding to the behaviour of the baby. It is usually observed that the most frequently seen adult response is to imitate what the baby does. Thus the teaching is highly responsive and by process, rather than directive and driving to an objective.
For the developers of Intensive Interaction, it seemed a logical step to borrow from these processes in order to ignite the communication learning of many people who can frequently be considered ?communicatively difficult to reach?, often living with some, or extensive, social isolation. Thus, Intensive Interaction activities are literally highly interactive, with the teacher enjoyably working from the behaviour of the learner. The activities can operate at many levels of intensity; they can be active and physical, but also quietly intense and contemplative. For good progress to occur, the activities should happen frequently (daily, day after day), with the repetition of successful activities within sessions providing the basis for the gradual expanding in duration, content, sophistication and complexity of those activities.
Who is Intensive Interaction for?
It is intended that Intensive Interaction will address the needs of:
People who are pre-verbal, with few or limited communicative behaviours.
People who are extremely socially withdrawn, and do not positively interact with other people.
People who display various stereotyped or self-stimulatory behaviours that exclude the participation of other people.[1]