Last week, when looking for something else, I came across a piece of work I did for my then Open University course in 'learning about the processes of learning' i.e. education. At the time I was a regular and I think okay practitioner, but I was just starting to try and think a bit harder about the underlying theory of Intensive Interaction, and through the course, the teaching-learning process more generally.
An assignment in one module asked us to think about the 'Key Attainments' achieved within an aspect of learning that we were focusing our studies on, and of course I chose to focus on the learning that accrued for my then students with severe or profound learning disabilities through their engagement in Intensive Interaction; I ended up drawing out the diagram below:
An assignment in one module asked us to think about the 'Key Attainments' achieved within an aspect of learning that we were focusing our studies on, and of course I chose to focus on the learning that accrued for my then students with severe or profound learning disabilities through their engagement in Intensive Interaction; I ended up drawing out the diagram below:
When I look at this diagram now (trying to see past the somewhat arresting/off-putting colour scheme), what I see much more clearly than I did then is the complex and inter-related nature of all the fundamental social communication attainments - even when grossly simplified to the externally observable elements as in this diagram e.g. any increased use of eye contact is dependant on:
So what about all this 'complex, inter-related and circularly supportive' malarkey I hear you ask ... well because all these individually conceptualised social communication attainments (e.g. 'increased use of eye contact') are in fact all inter-related and circularly supportive of each other across the very broad front of social learning - I think that the pressure to develop SMART teaching targets (i.e. S= Specific, M= Measurable, A= Achievable, R= Relevant, T= Time-bound targets) are at best a distraction from the process based, experiential learning that develops the skills and knowledge of the fundamentals of communication, but at worst I think they will become an actual barrier to genuine learning of the most important attainments we try to offer our learners, service users or family members.
- increased levels of stimulation or arousal ...
- also simultaneously on an increased use or understanding of facial signalling ...
- also on developing the ability to sequence any social signals with another person ...
- also alongside improved toleration of some else's physical proximity ...
So what about all this 'complex, inter-related and circularly supportive' malarkey I hear you ask ... well because all these individually conceptualised social communication attainments (e.g. 'increased use of eye contact') are in fact all inter-related and circularly supportive of each other across the very broad front of social learning - I think that the pressure to develop SMART teaching targets (i.e. S= Specific, M= Measurable, A= Achievable, R= Relevant, T= Time-bound targets) are at best a distraction from the process based, experiential learning that develops the skills and knowledge of the fundamentals of communication, but at worst I think they will become an actual barrier to genuine learning of the most important attainments we try to offer our learners, service users or family members.
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