From Isolation to Intimacy
Making Friends without Words
Phoebe Caldwell
With Jane Horwood
Paperback: £13.99 / $22.95
2007, 234mm x 156mm / 9.25in x 6in, 192pp
ISBN: 978-1-84310-500-8
If you have no language, how can you make yourself understood, let alone make friends? Phoebe Caldwell has worked for many years with people with severe intellectual disabilities and/or autistic spectrum disorder who are non-verbal, and whose inability to communicate has led to unhappy and often violent behaviour. In this new book she explores the nature of close relationships, and shows how these are based not so much on words as on the ability to listen, pay attention, and respond in terms that are familiar to the other person.
This is the key to Intensive Interaction, which she shows is a straightforward and uncomplicated way, through attending to body language and other non-verbal means of communication, of establishing contact and building a relationship with people who are non-verbal, even those in a state of considerable distress. This simple method is accessible to anyone who lives or works with such people, and is shown to transform lives and to introduce a sense of fun, of participation and of intimacy, as trust and familiarity are established.
Blog posts
Article by Phoebe Caldwell: Using Intensive Interaction to turn ‘aloneness’ into shared interest
15 January 2010
"Contrary to what is normally understood, children on the autistic spectrum do recognise when we use their own body language to communicate, provided we respond using the repertoire of their personal behaviours. We are shifting their attention from solitary self-stimulation to shared activity, remembering that what is important is not just what they do - but how they do it, since this tells us how they feel."
Related events
NAS Autism and Relationships, Puberty, Sex and Sexuality Conference
11th June 2013 from 08.45 to 16.15
Marriot Hotel Manchester
Join us at the NAS conference on Autism and Relationships, Puberty, Sex and Sexuality.
We will be attending this conference run by the National Autistic Society on 11th June in Manchester, UK. Come along to visit our book stand and hear our authors Wendy Lawson and Phoebe Caldwell speak.
By the same authors
Finding You Finding Me
Using Intensive Interaction to get in touch with people whose severe learning disabilities are combined with autistic spectrum disorder
Phoebe Caldwell
Using Intensive Interaction and Sensory Integration
A Handbook for Those who Support People with Severe Autistic Spectrum Disorder
Phoebe Caldwell
With Jane Horwood
Autism and Intensive Interaction
Using Body Language to Reach Children on the Autistic Spectrum
Phoebe Caldwell
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