Communicating Partners: 30 Years of Building Responsive Relationships with Late-Talking Children

Children with autism and their life partners – their parents, families, peers and educators – who are not on the autism spectrum can feel as though they live in separate, and even incompatible worlds. Communicating Partners, the result of over thirty years of clinical practice, research and professional teaching, offers an innovative approach to working with children with ASDs that focuses on developing these relationships through mutual understanding.

MacDonald describes five key developmental stages of communication development in a child on the autism spectrum – interaction, nonverbal communication, social language, conversation and civil behaviour. He then presents a set of five programs that help these children to play with others, interact spontaneously, communicate more effectively, use language for conversations and sustain socially acceptable relationships.

With extended case studies illustrating each stage of development and practical strategies for parents, teachers and professionals that help them to understand their child's world, Communicating Partners will be an invaluable resource for all those interacting and working with children with autism.

Table of Contents

Part I Introduction to communicating partners - a responsive relationship approach to autism: basic notions

• communicating partners - a 30-year history with families of children with autism
• principles
• research studies
• frequently asked questions - how CP differs from traditional approaches
• examples of children involved in the studies
• five stages of communication development
• five responsive relationship strategies central to the programme.

Part II Five developmental programmes: your child's interactive life

• your child's non-verbal communicative life
• your child's social language life
• your child's conversation life
• your child's civil life

Part III The adult-child relationship map for assessment and planning.