It is 20 years since ‘Implementing Intensive Interaction in Schools: Guidance for Practitioners, Managers and Coordinators’ by Mary Kellet & Melaine Nind was published by David Fulton Publishers (2003). To celebrate this groundbreaking Intensive Interaction book, I have taken a very liberal approach in quoting directly from it:
‘Intensive Interaction was developed … [in] a pre-National Curriculum era in which pupils with severe and complex learning disabilities had only recently been deemed educable … Disaffection with behaviourist teaching was starting to spread … [and] there was an acknowledgement that learners needed a reason to communicate in order for language to develop and that meaningful learning takes place in context’ (p.8)
‘There is also the danger of becoming preoccupied with the veneer of progress … We clearly need some agreement about what we are aiming for so we can reach agreement about whether progress has occurred … If we are looking for progress in autonomy, quality of life, ability to form relationships and so on, then we have to be explicit that this is our curriculum. If we want the kinds of progress that Intensive Interaction can bring about, we have to engage with this, and not an alternative, normative agenda’ (p.122)
‘Lateral progression is very familiar to us in Intensive Interaction. We put effort into supporting pupils to widen their repertoire of interactive games and to engage them in new contexts and with new people. We see it as progress when pupils use their growing skills in new ways and when they use them spontaneously … In recognising progress we look for interactions that are longer, have more variations, and involve increased engagement‘ (p.123)
‘We are more concerned with facilitating abilities that enhance the pupil’s quality of life and quality of relationships with others. These are abilities that we see emerging in context and that cannot be measured out of context. They happen in relation to each other’ (p.123)
‘When we actively seek progress through Intensive Interaction we do not systemically work through a hierarchical checklist of skills, but rather explore a network of interconnected abilities with all kinds of inbuilt possibilities’ (p.123)
‘We have to be willing to look for progress that can be easily missed, but that is nonetheless incredibly significant … our concept of progress is one that is mutual. In Intensive Interaction terms, progress is as much about moving on in respect of how we respond, in our interpretations and in the experiences we offer, as about what the pupil learns to do’ (p.124)
‘Notions of independent achievement are nonsensical when we are concerned with communication and sociability … If we could enhance the practice of the teacher-partner then we would enhance the progress of the pupil-partner’ (p.125)
‘A pupil with PMLD attending a mainstream school but not enjoying meaningful participation and learning may count as inclusion for those who favour the importance of location, while for others more concerned with process, inclusion may be more about the respect shown for the pupil’s difference’ (p.151)
‘Intensive Interaction is a positive response to pupil diversity. It focuses on making the curriculum fit the pupil and not the pupil fit the curriculum’ (p.153)
‘The active and interactive learning we are concerned with is about empowerment, democracy and citizenship as this learning inevitably involves the teachers and learners in sharing and negotiating power. When we ‘do’ Intensive Interaction, we are ‘doing’ citizenship‘ (p.158)
To get your own copy go to: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Implementing-Intensive-Interaction-Schools-Practitioners/dp/1843120194
Connecting with Intensive Interaction 