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Being Social with My Friends: Communication for Positive Inclusive Relationships

Help young people with PMLD make real friends, through shared experiences and the small stories friends tell each other.

  • 46 minutes
  • Recorded webinar
  • 1 CPD hour
  • Certificate

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14 days free, then £70 a year or £7 a month.

What you'll learn

  • Understand why shared experience and emotion are what build friendships
  • Give learners with PMLD an active role in activities with their peers
  • Use story sharing to help learners tell and enjoy personal anecdotes
  • Respond with active listening and mirroring, not quiet attention
  • Spot segregation in your own setting that limits friendships

About this course

Twenty years of research have changed very little for young people with profound and multiple learning disabilities. They're still among the most isolated people in any society, with few friends of their own age. Worksheets on friendship skills won't fix that. Friendships grow from doing things together and then talking about them.

You'll see how a learner can take an active part in a shared experience, whether that's pressing a switch in a board game or holding the map on a trip so everyone has to crowd round. You'll learn story sharing, an approach built on the tiny anecdotes friends swap every day, and see a young man with PMLD deliver the punchline of his own haircut story.

It's led by a speech and language therapist with nearly 50 years' experience with people with severe and profound disabilities.

  • For early career teachers, support staff and 2 other roles. Early years, primary, secondary and special.

Recording

Open in order

  1. Introduction

    2 min
  2. Understanding PMLD

    2 min
  3. Research

    3 min
  4. Circle of Friendships

    4 min
  5. Barriers

    4 min
  6. Social Interventions of Friendship

    3 min
  7. Group Intervention

    4 min
  8. Curriculum Focused

    2 min
  9. Story sharing for Friendship

    4 min
  10. Building Blocks for Friendship

    2 min
  11. Experience

    3 min
  12. Shared Experiences

    2 min
  13. PAMIS Online Art Group

    2 min
  14. Active Listening

    4 min
  15. Social Stories Key Moments

    2 min
  16. Mirroring Behaviours

    1 min
  17. Gary’s Haircut

    4 min
  18. What Now?

    6 min