This Blog follows on from my last two: the first setting out my view on our collective potential to 'unconsciously and unquestioningly project too much confidence into a set of sometimes quite crude numbers' (14/05/18), and the second on the issues I thought important to consider when setting out to 'record' or collect data on the use of Intensive Interaction e.g. the proposed audience, the efficiency, the range of applicability, the scope to capture all levels of developmental progression, etc (21/05/18) .
However, as I was writing these blogs, and generally when I discuss 'recording outcomes' (and services are undoubtedly under ever more pressure to record 'outcomes' of educational and/or therapeutic interventions) I always wonder exactly whose 'outcome' or 'attainment' it actually is that ends up being recorded ... because obviously there are always two communication partners involved in any Intensive Interaction engagement (No s**t Sherlock! as I like to say).
So that poses us a question - are we measuring the individual attainment or social communication outcome of the person we are working with (the learner or service user, or family member) or are we measuring the quality of the Intensive Interaction practice of the practitioner which will support or scaffold the social communication attainment of the person we are working with? ... or more likely, actually almost certainly, some combination of both?
And if it is some combination of both, how much weight should we give to any perceived individual attainment of the learner, service user or family member, compared to the level or quality of the Intensive Interaction practiced with them? ... interestingly (well, to me anyway) this view also links to my previous blogs of 19/03/18 and 26/03/18 about the level or degree of someone's social impairment being mediated by the good social engagement practices of those supporting them!
This is often where the strong driving force of service/organisational need to record everything as an individual attainment or outcome, often in terms of crude and poorly defined numbers, rubs up badly against any sensible person's more rounded view that all social attainments or outcomes are, and can only ever be, the product of social engagements between more than one individual person.
However, those of us who have the pleasure of working in services (educational, residential, clinical) will be required to input some 'recordings' of some data into some system (increasingly electronic) ... as if it were an individual attainment or outcome. So what do we do ... how do we best play the system to get the genuinely best individual outcome for our people i.e. continuous access to good quality Intensive Interaction?
That is a difficult question to answer precisely, but I suppose the best way generally is to record attainment and/or outcomes as individual achievements (as required by the system), but to do so secretly knowing that any such 'individual achievement' can only be made real within and through regular Intensive Interaction of the highest quality ... the better we are as practitioners, the better the quality and/or effectiveness of the Intensive Interaction, the better supposed individual attainment or outcome for the individual learner, service user or family member ... I think.
However, as I was writing these blogs, and generally when I discuss 'recording outcomes' (and services are undoubtedly under ever more pressure to record 'outcomes' of educational and/or therapeutic interventions) I always wonder exactly whose 'outcome' or 'attainment' it actually is that ends up being recorded ... because obviously there are always two communication partners involved in any Intensive Interaction engagement (No s**t Sherlock! as I like to say).
So that poses us a question - are we measuring the individual attainment or social communication outcome of the person we are working with (the learner or service user, or family member) or are we measuring the quality of the Intensive Interaction practice of the practitioner which will support or scaffold the social communication attainment of the person we are working with? ... or more likely, actually almost certainly, some combination of both?
And if it is some combination of both, how much weight should we give to any perceived individual attainment of the learner, service user or family member, compared to the level or quality of the Intensive Interaction practiced with them? ... interestingly (well, to me anyway) this view also links to my previous blogs of 19/03/18 and 26/03/18 about the level or degree of someone's social impairment being mediated by the good social engagement practices of those supporting them!
This is often where the strong driving force of service/organisational need to record everything as an individual attainment or outcome, often in terms of crude and poorly defined numbers, rubs up badly against any sensible person's more rounded view that all social attainments or outcomes are, and can only ever be, the product of social engagements between more than one individual person.
However, those of us who have the pleasure of working in services (educational, residential, clinical) will be required to input some 'recordings' of some data into some system (increasingly electronic) ... as if it were an individual attainment or outcome. So what do we do ... how do we best play the system to get the genuinely best individual outcome for our people i.e. continuous access to good quality Intensive Interaction?
That is a difficult question to answer precisely, but I suppose the best way generally is to record attainment and/or outcomes as individual achievements (as required by the system), but to do so secretly knowing that any such 'individual achievement' can only be made real within and through regular Intensive Interaction of the highest quality ... the better we are as practitioners, the better the quality and/or effectiveness of the Intensive Interaction, the better supposed individual attainment or outcome for the individual learner, service user or family member ... I think.
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