A Rationale for the Child-Centred Learning and Activity Session (CCLAS)

What is Intensive Interaction?

Intensive Interaction is an approach to the teaching of early communication attainment. These communication attainments are the outcomes, knowledge and abilities that in usual development commence at birth and progress through to the development of speech and language in a typically developing child. For children with atypical language development these skills need to be taught explicitly, and Intensive Interaction provides a way to do this. The learning intentions or success criteria of Intensive Interaction are usually summarised under the heading of the ‘Fundamentals of Communication’, these being:

• Enjoying being with another person.

• Developing the ability to attend to that person.

• Concentration and attention span.

• Learning to do sequences of activity with another person.

• Taking turns in exchanges of behaviour.

• Sharing personal space.

• Using and understanding eye contacts.

• Using and understanding facial expressions.

• Using and understanding physical contacts.

• Using and understanding other non-verbal communications.

(Nind and Hewett 1994, 2001, 2005)

How does it work?

· Intensive interaction is a highly practical process – the only equipment needed is a sensitive person to be the interaction partner.

· The approach works by progressively developing enjoyable and relaxed interaction sequences between the interaction partner and the learner.

· The teacher is responsive rather than directive.

· The learner should lead and direct with the teacher responding to and joining-in with the behaviour.

· An essential aspect of being responsive is also to pause and wait.

Intensive Interaction Techniques

· Sharing Personal Space

· Physical Contact

· Vocal Echoing

· Behaviour mirroring

· Eye contact

· Joint Focus Activity

· Listening to music/sounds together

· Joint action

· Burst-Pause Sequences

· Exchanging Facial Expression

· Turn Taking

Resources

Sensory Objects

· The main resource for the activities are minimal – simply; the presence of a person, a face, a voice and body movements.

· Sensory objects can often really help and support intensive interaction sessions.

· Can include different textures of objects.

· Observe the person carefully to learn what they like/dislike and how they communicate this.

Useful Resources

· Light up objects – balls, flashing animals.

· Squeezy/stretchy objects

· Balls

· Spinners

· Tactile objects

· Feely boxes with Pasta – be aware if the client has any eating and drinking needs.

· Painting, drawing materials.

· Musical instruments – rain makers, chime bars, triangles, drums.

· Sponges/loafers/brushes/mini massagers.

· Mirrored paper/CDs/Sequins/light reflecting materials.

· Soft materials – cotton wool, fabric, feathers, pipe cleaners.

Step by Step Approach

Step Once – Copying and Building Confidence Together

· Sharing Personal Space

· Short regular sessions (3-4 minutes at first).

· Give the individual your undivided attention.

· Copy movements, vocalisations and facial expressions.

· Monitor the person’s response and see what gains the best response.

· Follow the persons lead and reinforce any action, noise and expression.

· When they say stop you stop.

· When they start you start.

· Don’t copy actions you would rather not see, reinforce the next positive.

· Try to end all sessions on a positive note.

Step Two – Turn Taking

· Length of the session will be increasing (20+ minutes).

· Sessions should last as long as the individual is engaged.

· You are confident with the actions and vocalisations the person makes.

· Start to introduce a familiar action so the person may follow your lead.

· Don’t expect them to copy.

· If they copy you, copy it back reinforce the persons’ actions.

· You are now turn taking.

· Treat every session as a new and don’t pre-empt what they will like.

Step Three – Generalising the Approach

· Now you are able to copy and lead in the interactions with the person.

· You are likely to be able to introduce further activities that will gain their attention.

· Keep in mind following the persons lead, whilst introducing them to more structured activities such as puzzles, stacking, painting and singing etc.

· Continue to copy any vocalisations and movements during these activities.

· Within the activities introduce familiar actions to help the person feel safe.

· Use short sessions of intensive interaction throughout the day as they occur to engage the person.

The Picture Exchange Communication System is an invaluable resource. It uses visual symbols to teach the learner to communicate their wants and needs. It also aids the user to engage with others, use expressive language for a purpose, and develop conversation skills.

Overview of PECS: The picture communication system is a form of augmentative and alternative communication. The system is commonly used as a communicative aid for children with an autistic spectrum disorder. It’s a means of communication for pupils who have limited or no speech.

Who it’s for: It’s for pupils who have various communicative, cognitive and physical impairments. It’s designed to teach functional commination skills with an initial focus on spontaneous communication. It can be implemented in a variety of settings and contexts home, school, community so pupils have the skills to communicate their wants and needs.

How it works: It’s a method to teach individuals with a communication impairment a way to communicate within a social context. Research has shown that using PECS can also begin to develop speech and increase communication skills.

Phase 1 – How to communicate

Phase 2 – Distance and Persistence

Phase 3 – Discrimination between symbols

Phase 4 – Using Phrases

Phase 5 – Answering a direct question

Phase 6 – Commenting

How do we use it in school: The focus is on teaching the pupil to initiate social communication. They are taught to approach the communicative partner with a picture of the reinforcer and place the picture in the teachers hand in order to receive the reward.

At phase 1 it is important to have 2 adults as one acts as the physical prompter.

Reinforcers – before implementing PECS the teacher develops a list of which items the learner likes. This way no verbal prompting is needed to ask the child what they want. The chosen reinforcers should be consistently motivating for children.

Overview of Colour Semantics

Colourful semantics is a system of applying colour to language; In addition to the traditional “who” “what” “why” “When” “where” questions, a colour is applied to support consistency word retrieval and sentence construction. It activates both sides of the brain to be more successful.

It was originally developed to support children with specific language difficulties, but has been recognised to support the language difficulites associated with:

· Autism Spectrum Disorder

· English as an additional language

· Word Finding difficulties

· Language delay/disorder

· Comprehension difficulties

Colourful semantics helps children understand and use the underlying meaning relationships in a sentence (Who does what to whom). This in turn means that they can create sentences that make sense with the words in the right order.

At the centre of every sentence is the verb. Each verb has other essential information that usually goes with it. For example the verb PUT needs to have

· WHO is putting

· WHAT is being put

· WHERE it is being put

If one element is missing the sentence doesn’t make sense e.g. Mum put in the cupboard or Mum put the cup

We also need to be able to use other information in our sentences, which are not directly connected to the verb but still needs essential for the meaning we want to convey

e.g. WHEN the event took place WHERE the event took place. Description words (adjectives/concepts etc) to explain WHAT things are LIKE (tell me more)

A colour is given to each part of the sentence structure and a question to each part of the structure to help a child structure their sentences and develop vocabulary.

The TEACCH method ensures that children are taught in a way which plays to a child’s strength and helps them to develop strategies to work around their individual challenges. It is based on the idea that autistic learners are visual learners.

Within Carlibar Communication service we use a variety of language and symbol based communication systems to support and develop the communication of all pupils. One of the systems we use is Makaton and this is used with some pupils within classes.