'Creating a clearing for live activity' by Ditte Rose Andersen

‘Creating a clearing for live activity: exploration, decisions and steps in implementing Intensive Interaction in Denmark’ – a chapter by Danish psychologist Ditte Rose Andersen from the book Delivering Intensive Interaction Across Settings (Barber & Firth, Eds, 2019) now available from Amazon - £4.43 in paperback or £0.99p Kindle version.

Below are some insightful and profound quotes selected from Ditte’s chapter covering her thoughts on different aspects of her Intensive Interaction dissemination work in Denmark:

‘Face to face-interaction, and its sense of live activity, is likely to be as important at a strategy meeting or a conference presentation as in the sandbox in an Intensive Interaction session’.

‘We come to understand both ourselves and others through our shared activities, not through abstract reasoning. The act of understanding another is bound up with the quality of our engagement with them’.

‘The [Intensive Interaction] approach is immediately socially inclusive and reciprocal in a way that lets you know the other person in a meaningful way. What you learn from participation is qualitatively different from the knowledge gained from distant observation, standardized testing, or clever experiments’.

‘In no way was I prepared for the profound and dramatic development it supports. It has been almost shocking to realize how attuned, responsive communication provides perfectly pitched conditions for the development of people’s potential’.

Ditte's chapter includes a narrative about her initial 'live activity' project when introducing Intensive Interaction into a Danish special school by directly working with an autistic boy called Mads.

‘At a face to face-level, I would describe the project period as one and a half years of living with, rather than overcoming, the challenge of different views and practices: living with that challenge in a way that allowed for time to practise’.

‘Although questions may be conceptual, theoretical and general, we need practice combined with reflection to be able to respond in meaningful, useful and precise ways’.

‘…if materials and symbols are used in ways that excessively controls the behaviour and activities of people with communication disabilities, they can be a hindrance to creating and nurturing developmentally relevant activities for children, students, service users’.

‘When faced with ideas, theories, values and concepts that we see as counterproductive to implementing Intensive Interaction, I think it is important to remember, that we don’t need to “...save the whole world or do anything grandiose” as the poem [‘Clearing’ by Martha Postlewaite, quoted at the start of Ditte’s chapter] reads. “Instead, create a clearing in the dense forest of your life and wait there patiently until the song that is yours alone to sing life falls into your own cupped hands…”’

After qualifying as an Intensive Interaction Coordinator in 2013, Ditte then went on to found Intensive Interaction Denmark in 2014. In 2015 she translated The Intensive Interaction Handbook into Danish, and in 2016 she received the Demetrious Haracopos grant, acknowledging her work in the spirit of Haracopos i.e. that ‘Every person has the right to be seen and heard’. 

For anyone even remotely interested in Intensive Interaction, I thoroughly recommend that you read Ditte's chapter in its entirety!

Did you know that research into the outcomes of Intensive Interaction started in 1991?

There are times when I feel that Intensive Interaction is still a fairly novel approach in educational or care services. However, the body of evidence for the range of positive outcomes for the approach actually goes back quite a way - in fact it goes back 28 years!

An Evaluation of Intensive Interactive Teaching with Pupils with Very Severe Learning Difficulties

Watson, J. & Knight, C. (1991) Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 7 (3), 310-25.

This 1991 article describes an evaluation of the use of Intensive Interaction by staff at a school for pupils with severe learning difficulties, in Edinburgh, over a one year period. Six pupils with severe learning difficulties were studied, these children being chosen to represent a range of age and ability. Six staff members worked with each given pupil over this period of time.

The Method: Staff were asked to behave as naturally as possible, and to introduce a toy or object that they felt would be interesting to the child at some point. The beginning of the session was signalled by taking off the pupils' shoes and leading them into the soft play area. Sessions were usually terminated when the staff member decided that the pupil had had enough (e.g. on the basis of decreased responsiveness). Each session was filmed, and staff also completed an interaction recording sheet. The staff were also interviewed at the end of the study.

The Findings: from this study it appeared that the interactions were important for the pupils, and staff emphasised the fact that ‘it builds a good relationship' and ‘there is confidence and trust ... built up'. Staff also talked about other positive effects, which included staff being more relaxed and more willing to wait for a pupil’s responses; and improvements in staffs’ observation skills.

In general, it was claimed that staff developed high levels of expertise, and that the interactive experiences ‘benefited their pupils and improved their own working practice’. Staff also claimed that the positive effects of the interactive experiences ‘also extended to other pupils in the class’ as the staff had become ‘more relaxed, more tolerant, and more willing to wait for responses’.

That research was published 28 years ago - and still we find ourselves introducing Intensive Interaction to staff teams who know little or nothing of the approach. More and more I find myself asking these questions:

Why isn't Intensive Interaction mandatory training for all staff who work in special education? and ...

What are we missing in getting Intensive Interaction truly embedded in the general fabric of our educational offer to all the children and staff (and parents) who would benefit?