I have recently been pointed to a new research study involving the ‘standard use’ of Intensive Interaction. This fascinating study, carried out by academics Devyn Glass and Nicola Yuill (from the University of Sussex), looked for ‘Evidence of mutual non-verbal synchrony in learners with severe learning disability and autism, and their support workers: a motion energy analysis study’ – published as an open access paper (hurray!) in the online Journal Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience.
This paper looked at the balance (or otherwise) of ‘interpersonal motor synchrony‘ between teaching staff (LSWs) and young adult learners with autism and severe learning disabilities who had used Intensive Interaction – it’s a shame that’s not mentioned in the title of the paper though. The study was carried out in a special education college where Intensive Interaction was used ‘as a standard approach‘.
The research set out to investigate (or at least look in more evidential detail at) the belief that people who are neurodivergent struggle to adapt their movements to a social partner’s movements, and thus have a deficit in their ability to ‘facilitate interpersonal motor synchrony‘.
So, using an automated video analysis system called ‘Motion Energy Analysis‘ the researchers assessed ‘the degree to which each partner acted as a leader, and hence which partner acted as a follower, during moments of close synchrony‘. And, what they found was that, overall, learners and LSWs (who had used Intensive Interaction ‘as a standard approach‘ remember) showed higher than chance ‘interpersonal motor synchrony‘ i.e. there were no differences in the degree to which each partner led and/or followed the other in moments of synchrony.
Now, according to my reading of this paper, I think that it is a profoundly important piece of work. Why? Because these findings seem to ‘tentatively challenge‘ the notion (or accepted belief) that a synchrony deficit is an individualised characteristic of autism/autistic people (i.e. not something that is socially constructed). It seems from the findings of this paper that the standard use of Intensive Interaction is being directly evidenced as creating socially attuned contexts that allow motor synchrony to naturalistically develop within social dyads – in these cases between the LSWs and the students … and obviously, vice versa.
Wow!!!! Well, no, not Wow!!!!, because it’s what we should expect because of what Intensive Interaction is, and what it does; but to see it reported on in such a sensitive, well-structured and unbelievably well-referenced manner, well then, yes: Wow!!!!
(You can access the full paper here: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/integrative-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnint.2024.1353966/full)
Ref: Glass, D. & Yuill, N. (2024) Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience. 18:1353966. doi: 10.3389/fnint.2024.1353966
Connecting with Intensive Interaction 