An investigation into the use of interaction strategies for children with profound and multiple learning difficulties

This study examined the premise that intensive social interaction facilitates a greater quality of responsiveness and the learning of social routines in children with profound and multiple learning difficulties (pmld). The significant behaviours that adults and normally developing infants use during social interaction and the suitability of their application to children with pmld was examined. Four children with chronological ages of five years, six years, eight years and nine years and designated as having pmld, were videotaped in a classroom setting, in a series of interaction sequences with a teacher. The manifestation of the features of attentiveness, imitation, vocalisation, posture changes, eye contact and facial expressions in children with pmld were considered in relation to adult interactive behaviours of touch, facial movements, vocalisations using infant register, play movements, en face positions with the child and imitation of child behaviours. Analysis of the videotaped data took the form of observation of five second sequences of interaction scored on a schedule indicating the adult and child interactive behaviours. A second observer viewed a number of Interactions in the videotaped data to confirm reliability. The indications were that children with pmld show a quality of responsiveness that has implications for the learning of social routines

A Study of Michael Fordham's Model of Development: An Integration of Observation, Research and Clinical Work

This portfolio of published work represents a discourse on Michael Fordham's model of development that extended Jung's theory to infancy and childhood. The papers were published over two decades and indicate how infant research, ideas from related fields and the author's own clinical and observational work have contributed to her understanding of development. The framework for her thinking has throughout been Fordham's model. In this essay the author contends that what she has learned from research and her own experience adds new contributions to the model, based on data for the most part not available to Fordham. The portfolio of papers is introduced by an essay comprising Part I. It begins with an account of the author's professional life and clinical experience pertinent to the study. Next there is a substantial section on Fordham ' s theoretical model and links he established with Kleinian and post-Kleinian thought. This exposition is followed by a section on the main sources for the author's work. Following this she proposes five areas that she considers to be her original contributions to the model: identifying and defining the features of massive surges of deintegration in the first year; identifying a period of primary self functioning; new considerations concerning the active participation of the infant in development; identifying precursors to projective and introjective identification, and symbol formation. Part II contains nine papers, virtually all of which are theoretical and include clinical work and infant research and observation. They are divided into three sections: 'Theory ', which are predominantly theoretical and ain1ed at making a theoretical point; 'Exp lications ', which aim to elucidate concepts and dynamics comprising the model; and 'Extensions', which are those papers explicitly or implicitly containing the author's new links and ideas that add form and content to the model