It is now 20 years since a research paper was published that I think is hugely powerful, and one that I often directly quote from during the training I give. The paper is Catherine’s legacy: social communication development for individuals with profound learning difficulties and fragile life expectancies. It was written by Mary Kellett, and published in the British Journal of Special Education. As the abstract says, this paper shows how ‘an 11-year-old girl’s quality of life was transformed in the last few months before she died when an Intensive Interaction intervention approach was adopted’.
Tragically, Catherine died during the research period whilst Intensive Interaction was being used with her, but her legacy lives on. Often, research publications are purposely dry and unemotive, but not this one. Here are two paragraphs taken from the conclusions section of the paper:
In deliberating on what we can learn from Catherine’s case study, we also have to consider what Intensive Interaction meant for her family and close supporters. In the last few weeks of Catherine’s life, Catherine’s mother had begun to use Intensive Interaction in the home environment after sitting in on some of the sessions with Liz [Catherine’s teacher] and learning more about the approach. She particularly enjoyed playing the tutting and bubble blowing games with her daughter and was rewarded with smiles and eye contact. After Catherine’s death, her mother wrote to express her gratitude that her daughter had been given the opportunity to participate in the Intensive Interaction study. She described the joy of the family in being able finally to ‘connect’ with Catherine and wrote that those last few months were their happiest times together. The fact that Catherine died only a short time after these communicative developments made the ‘connection’ all the more potent and it is impossible to measure this in human terms.
The family was able to take ownership of video footage of Catherine enjoying Intensive Interaction with her teacher, Liz. The video was alive with smiles, eye contact, warm physical interaction and the sound of Catherine using her tongue in a tutting sound as part of a playful imitative game. These video images constitute precious memories for the family and equally precious data for the research community … It provides hope for the future and a tangible way forward through adopting approaches like Intensive Interaction. Catherine is no longer with us, but she has left a rich legacy behind her.
I’ll leave it there!
You can read a summary of Catherine’s Legacy at: https://connectingwithintensiveinteraction.com/2021/03/03/catherines-legacy-social-communication-development-for-individuals-with-profound-learning-difficulties-and-fragile-life-expectancies/
Connecting with Intensive Interaction 