Graham Firth

Understanding Intensive Interaction

Graham Firth

Intensive interaction is a valuable approach, with the potential to radically enhance the well-being of difficult-to-reach individuals, such as those with profound and severe learning disabilities, autistic spectrum conditions and emotional problems. This highly accessible book will help families and professionals develop a deeper understanding of this highly-successful approach and its associated issues, resulting in improved communication opportunities within a variety of care, therapeutic and educational settings.This compendium offers a multidisciplinary perspective to intensive interaction, bringing together the authors' experience and research from different disciplines. A glossary format and thematic structure are employed to enable readers to quickly access topics of interest, and gradually build on their understanding of the approach. Each chapter is devoted to an over-arching concept – including psychological theories of human behaviour, relationship building and maintenance and social inclusion – and illustrated with case studies to support theoretical assertions and offer practical examples of useful techniques.A useful reference and reflective tool, this book will interest both family and professional carers, support staff, special education teachers, learning disability nurses, social services practitioners, speech and language therapists, clinical psychologists, occupational therapists, or anyone who is interested in intensive interaction and wants to learn more.

Using Intensive Interaction with a Person with a Social or Communicative Impairment

Graham Firth

Intensive Interaction is a highly effective approach for communicating and developing social interaction and engagement with difficult-to-reach individuals. This easy-to-use guide steers readers through the practical application of the approach, showing how positive results can best be achieved. The authors explain clearly how to prepare for, carry out and reflect on the use of Intensive Interaction with a client or family member. A multitude of key questions are addressed, including finding the right setting, evaluating progress and disengaging effectively at the end of a session. In the final section they consider some of the wider implications of the approach, such as developing confidence as a practitioner and incorporating Intensive Interaction into long-term care or educational planning. This practical and accessible book is a useful resource for speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, special school or further education teachers, social care professionals and anyone else caring for or working with people with social or communicative impairments. It will also be useful to practitioners already using the approach.