From Isolation to Intimacy

Making Friends without Words

Phoebe Caldwell
With Jane Horwood

Paperback: £12.99 / $22.95

2007, 234mm x 156mm / 9.25in x 6in, 192pp
ISBN: 978-1-84310-500-8

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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.

Press coverage

How to communicate with autistic children

Click here to read a fantastic article by Phoebe Caldwell featured in The Times. Phoebe writes about her work with children with autism and Intensive Interaction.

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."

By the same authors

Author information

• Phoebe Caldwell
• Jane Horwood

Subject areas

• Disability
• Asperger Syndrome, Autism and other Syndromes

Keywords

• Asperger syndrome,
• autism,
• intellectual disabilities,
• occupational therapy,
• sensory issues

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