Irresistible Interactions?

Image Credit: ww w.icare4autism.org/news/2013/09/

The latest tool in my Independent Speech, Language and Communication therapy toolkit is "Attention Autism". It's something I am delighted to now offer in Scotland.What I loved about it was its gentle, valuing and joyful approach - it feels like it is cut from similar cloth to my all time favourite "Intensive Interaction". I especially loved that it seeks and encourages spontaneous communication not prompt-dependence.I sleeper-trained down to the Gina Davies Autism Centre earlier in the year to find out exactly how to do it. Since then I have been trying out the techniques and exploring the principles - with my own kids and others (from 2-15 yrs). It's been (mainly) fun, (sometimes) messy, and (often) taken me by surprise the responses I get.

It's definitely thinking out of the box - in fact you tear up the box and bin it for the Attention Autism approach! It has challenged me to look differently at how I go about my everyday language and communication therapy. As Gina asks "are your interactions irresistible?".My goals/targets for the young people with autism haven't changed - they are still about joint attention, about encouraging vocalizations, spontaneous commenting, increasing attention span, understanding concepts and vocabulary, sequencing, turn-taking etc etc. Attention Autism is just a different path to get to those goals that builds on enthusiasm, motivation and creativity.Its well and truly in my toolkit now. It won't always be the tool that I pull out (after all sometimes we need a spanner and sometimes pliers), but I look forward to when I next lift that good old shower curtain out of my carboot!

This video clip gives you a snapshot glimpse of it.Call me to chat more about what I can offer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFYnc4xcZ6k