Author Archives: Graham Firth

US corporation takes £50 million ‘dividend’ from its UK care services

In a recent edition of Private Eye, they ran a story about Cygnet Health Care, a private company that runs residential and care services across the UK, stating that it is ‘entirely publicly funded by the NHS and local councils. Patients with learning difficulties in its care were slapped, kicked and abused. And now its ownersContinue reading “US corporation takes £50 million ‘dividend’ from its UK care services”

‘Silent Minority’ TV documentary … the 40th anniversary

The TV documentary ‘Silent Minority’ was first shown on British TV 40 years ago this week – it perhaps did more than anything else to evidence the degrading and inhuman living conditions suffered by many people with learning disabilities in large scale institutional care at the time.
Read on for more…

Is what I am doing Intensive Interaction or not?

So, how do I know if I am doing Intensive Interaction with a person?
For my Blog this week I am reproducing a slightly abridged section of the FAQs document from the Intensive Interaction ‘Adult Services Documents’ and ‘Curriculum Documents for Schools’ packs.

30 Years of Intensive Interaction Research

This Blog revisits the first published Intensive Interaction research paper (that is now nearly 30 years old) – illustrating just how long-standing and well-established Intensive Interaction research now is.

Researching Intensive Interaction: which ‘outcomes’ are the most important, and for who?

In this week’s Blog, Graham Firth tries to unpick some of the complex issues around researching Intensive Interaction, most specifically what ‘outcomes’ (and whose ‘outcomes’) should be considered important, and the potential difficulties such considerations can bring.

A Welcome Blog From Graham Firth

A welcoming Blog from Graham Firth: in his first Blog on the new ‘Connecting with Intensive Interaction’ website, Graham Firth sets out a few (admittedly quite vague) plans for the future development of the site … and invites new contributors to write their own Blogs!

A glossary of useful research terms

BASELINE PHASE: a baseline phase is the period in research before a new approach (intervention) is started. BASELINE ASSESSMENT: a baseline assessment is an assessment of someone’s skills or competences prior to the start of an intervention in order to be able to objectively evaluate the effects of the intervention. DATA: information gathered and organisedContinue reading “A glossary of useful research terms”

Some other Intensive Interaction articles & papers of interest:

Barber M. (2007) ‘Imitation, interaction and dialogue using Intensive Interaction: tea party rules’, Support for Learning, 22, 124–30. Firth, G. (2006) ‘Intensive Interaction: a Research Review’, Mental Health & Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, 3 (1), 53-58. Firth, G., Poyser, C. & Guthrie, N. (2013) ‘Training care staff in Intensive Interactions’, Learning Disability Practice, 16Continue reading “Some other Intensive Interaction articles & papers of interest:”