A day in the life of an Intensive Interaction Coordinator/ Practitioner

The following post was written by Intensive Interaction Coordinator/ Practitioner, Anne Barker as her contribution to Autism Awareness Day. "Cheeky Monkey" and "My Little Mate" are just two of the children she works with.

I had a lot of things that I wanted to say in a post for Autism Awareness day, but then I decided that maybe telling you about my working day today might be just as effective as an unstructured ramble!

I spent this morning with a cheeky monkey who is 4 years old and has a diagnosis of autism. I've been working with him since he was 2 and pre-diagnosis and seen him go from having little to no speech and a tendency to block people out, to the chatty sociable boy he is today. This morning we played with some alphabet boxes borrowed from the play library I also work for. Cheeky monkey picked up each one individually and, unprompted, said the sounds of the letters. He then took the items out of each box and made up a nonsense name for each of them. I repeated the funny words after him and we had a good giggle. He had been looking for the sun and moon and spent some time making them go up and down in turn. We chatted about day and night and cheeky monkey told me "the sun goes around the earth" (we'll forgive him for the scientific inaccuracy- he is only 4 after all!). After that we did a bit of sensory exploration with some kinetic play sand. Cheeky monkey made me a cake and we discussed how the sand felt and moved and sorted the colours back into the right tubs- all led by him. We usually end our session with a story sack. Today it was a favourite of a mine- the Gruffalo. Cheeky monkey thoroughly enjoyed bringing the story to life with the toys and finishing off the sentences for me. I had a brief chat with his parents at the end of the session, who were concerned about his behaviour getting a little "bossy". I explained how autism is a disorder characterised by high anxiety and that this type of controlling behaviour may well be an attempt to decrease some of his anxiety and we discussed how best to help him with this.

This afternoon I went to see my little mate who is 12 and also has autism. I have been working with my little mate since he was 5 years old and a much more distant boy. Well-intentioned early behavioural intervention had taught him many skills but also made him demand resistant and very hard to reach. His warrior mum found 'Intensive Interaction' when he was 7 and the change in my little mate has been quite astounding to watch. He is now very sociable and playful and his communication improves every day. He is home educated (special schools couldn't provide for his combination of high intelligence and early communication abilities) and now has a team of therapists who do I.I with him throughout the day, along with his family. Today we had a little play on his iPad and watched some videos about rainbows and colours. My little mate said the names of the colours in five different languages (!!) and we enjoyed singing colour songs together. Then it was off to the beach! My little mate got very distressed when we arrived and the weather was rainy and grey. There was a bit of head-banging, which isn't easy to see even after all these years. I took him by the hand and once I had his attention encouraged him to do some deep breathing with me. The change was almost instant as he started to giggle about our "big sniffs". I threw a stone in a rock pool and he did the same. He then decided to look for a bigger stone and this turned into a game of throwing stones in sequence from tiny ones to the BIGGEST we could lift (all his idea). It was great fun and we went home with a spring in our step. Being out in nature seems to have a real calming effect on my little mate.

The key things that happened today were the moments of connection I shared with each of my clients. I go into my sessions with them with no agenda other than to enjoy their company. Of course I am paid to promote their development but you would be surprised at just how much learning and growing can happen when you give the child your full attention and responsiveness and trust them to take the lead. Babies learn to communicate through interaction with caregivers and children with autism can learn in just the same way if we are deliberate and mindful in the way we tune in and respond to them. And just like that little pebbles turn into big rocks.

And before you ask- yes I do know how lucky I am to have such a fantastic job.