‘Building a better picture’: Practitioners’ views of using a listening approach with young disabled children

Abstract

This article reports on a study of practitioners’ use of In-the-Picture – a reflective, observational approach – when delivering early intervention programmes to young disabled children. To date, In-the-Picture has been used mainly by researchers to study interactions and learning between young children, practitioners and the children’s parents in home and early childhood settings. Practitioners involved in this early research had expressed an interest in using the tool themselves. This project aimed to engage such potential users, support them in using the approach and gain evidence of its impact upon their practice. In-the-Picture facilitates listening and communication between adults and children with learning disabilities. It is based upon a sociocultural understanding of learning, seeing the parents, children and practitioners as agents participating in an emerging teaching and learning process. It derives from a qualitative grounded research method which enables the researcher to consider the child’s perspective, through the use of first-person narrative observation, photography of the child’s focus of attention and reflective discussion with the child, practitioners and family. This study involved 10 Portage services in England, who provide weekly home visits with a focus on supporting play and communication with their child. Training was delivered to over 80 Portage Home Visitors across these 10 services. A selected sample of 20 practitioners, 2 from each service, was interviewed after 6 weeks and again within focus groups after 3 months. All interviewees used the approach in their own way and identified challenges in its use, but In-the-Picture was seen as relevant and valuable by all the participants, producing changes in thinking and practice, while proving flexible and simple to use. The study also exemplified how current early-intervention working practices in England limit the opportunity to engage with the child’s perspective and how practitioners value having the opportunity to do so.

Identifying and Shifting Disempowering Paradigms for Families of Children With Disability Through a System Informed Positive Psychology Approach

“…The intervention aimed to identify and value the child’s strengths, but the children themselves were not included in the design itself. The inclusion of the child’s voice is increasingly being considered as possible and necessary from the earliest possible age ( Carroll and Twomey, 2020 ; Parsons et al, 2020 ; Rix et al, 2020 ). For instance, our experiences here have led to the development of the Child Voice model and program ( Mahmic and Janson, 2019 ).…”

Att lyssna på barn. Om lyssnandets teori och etik

“…9. Betoning på det unika barnet och som olikt vuxna blir ännu tydligare när mosaikmodellen för barn med funktionsvariationer diskuteras (Rix och MalibhaPinchbeck, 2020).…”

Listening to children: theories and ethics of listening

“…The emphasis on the child as unique and as different from adults becomes even more evident when the Mosaic approach for children with disabilities is discussed(Rix and Malibha-Pinchbeck, 2020).…”