Imitation, interaction and dialogue using Intensive Interaction: tea party rules

Intensive Interaction has become widely used when building up communication with children with profound learning difficulties. Often practitioners understand Intensive Interaction to be primarily about imitation and Mark Barber shows how this can be a misunderstanding that limits the kinds of interactions that can be enjoyed by conversation partners. The article explores how instead of just imitating, practitioners need to develop (wordless) conversations so they can follow the child's lead, introduce their own closely related ideas, provide variations and generally keep to the 'tea-party rules' developed by typically developing young children at play.