What is Intensive Interaction Curriculum, process and approach? a chapter by Dr Dave Hewett OBE.

For my blog this week I am again summarising a chapter from the book 'Intensive Interaction Theoretical Perspectives' (Ed: Hewett, D. 2011) that I have been rereading recently. This time it is the final chapter by Dr Dave Hewett:

What is Intensive Interaction? Curriculum, process and approach

In this chapter Dave (now Dr Dave Hewett OBE!) sets out his perspective on what Intensive Interaction actually is. Below I try to do his chapter justice and set out some extracts from this 'learned' discussion piece (his words ... and mine; you should see the list of references) defining Intensive Interaction as a 'teaching/learning approach'.

Intensive Interaction and process curriculum

Initially Dave sets out his thinking about how to describe Intensive Interaction in curricular terms, and states that ‘... the learners for whom Intensive Interaction is crucial, far from needing a broad and balanced curriculum, instead need one that is rather particular and focused.’ 

Defining Intensive Interaction as a teaching/learning approach

To help define Intensive Interaction, Dave casts Intensive Interaction as a ‘process-central’ approach. He states that: ‘In this model, the learning outcomes gradually emerge over time, as a result of the rolling, cumulative, generative process of frequent, regular, repetitive activities of Intensive Interaction’... and he's right, of course.

He then claims that with Intensive Interaction ‘the teaching, moment by moment, is more by a sense of artistry than by prescription’ (what a beautifully succinct term!) and that it isn’t possible ‘to be precise about when all the learning outcomes emerge’.

He also points out that such a way of teaching isn’t radical, and states that the teaching described in the UK Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS, QCDA, 2008) guidelines advocate teaching in much the same way, ‘with emergent learning outcomes’, and with ‘little emphasis on prescriptive or objectives-dominated learning’.

Vygostky and the ZDP

According to Dave, the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) concept of Vygotsky, and Bruner’s ‘Scaffolding’ conceptualisation ‘have always seemed to be useful thinking tools for allowing for the complexity of the teaching operation within parent-infant interaction and Intensive Interaction’. He elegantly describes the ZPD as ‘a malleable, flexible, questing entity, constantly reforming itself around, or ahead of the sensibilities and gathering powers of the learner’. He also states that in Intensive Interaction the teaching is mainly ‘intuitive and tacit, not necessarily conscious, but also judiciously blended with the conscious, tactical decision’.

Outcomes complexity and dynamic systems

With Intensive Interaction, according to Dave, ‘the learning is so vast and complex, the expert cannot break it down into sequential steps ... rather the complex learning situation gradually makes available the transfer of everything the expert does know, and also provides the dynamic social ecology necessary for the development of the cognitive substructures for the learner’.

The development of these ‘cognitive substructures’ thus becomes visible in the learner developing the understanding and practical skills identified in the ‘Fundamentals of Communication’ (Nind and Hewett, 1994). Although, as he points out, these Fundamentals of Communication (FoC’s) are really just the externally observable ‘tip of the iceberg’. Indeed he goes on to offer the opinion that 'the contents of the learning [in Intensive Interaction] is complex beyond analysis’.

Dave also goes on to contrast linear, task-analysed behavioural approaches to teaching (the most commonly seen type of approach used in special education) and sees these as inappropriate for the teaching of ‘the labyrinthine complexities of communication cognitions and performances’. Instead a more dynamic, play-based, playful and natural teaching approach is required, and he cites the views of Thorp and Gallimore (1988) who state that ‘in every culture, natural teaching transmits skills of immense variety and power - a “curriculum” of far greater complexity than anything attempted in schools’.

With such a view in mind, He notes that for Intensive Interaction sessions, they may feel ‘simple and beautiful to the participants, but they are actually complex and multi-faceted’.

The three ‘R’s and 'spiralling'

Dave nicely identifies the 3 R’s of Intensive Interaction as being: ‘Responsiveness’ ‘Repetition' and ‘Repertoire’ and he asserts that, ‘if the totality of the progress that any individual can make is to be anywhere near attained, the [Intensive Interaction] activities need to be repeated literally many, many times, day by day’ - a situation corresponding to the ‘natural model’ of parent-infant interaction.

However through this continuous process of repetition, the activities ‘gradually expand in duration, they gradually expand in content, they gradually expand in sophistication and complexity’. Finally Dave introduces the concept of ‘spiralling’ to describe the non-linear progress made as activities ‘gradually ‘lift off’ and ‘spiral upwards’ with a sense of the success in the activities breeding further success and so on’.

Anyone and everyone involved in the teaching of students with communication or social impairments should be made to read, and reread (as I did) this chapter. Talk about 'essential reading'!