Profound and Multiple Learning Disability

Dr. Mark Barber started his academic career working in the classroom as a teacher, working for many years at Melland School with Judith Coupe OKane. During this time he developed practical and research skills leading to collaboration with Dr. Juliet Goldbart leading to a number of publications. He is known for his innovative work on developing the Affective Communication Assessment [ACA] as described in Communication Before Speech [1998], his work with the use of micro switches as described in In Control [1994] and latterly for his 'Theory to Practice Seminars and Intensive Interaction Training Days that highlight the use of interactive approaches to assist people with both Profound Intellectual and Multiple Disabilities [PIMD] and Profound Intellectual Disabilities and Autistic Spectrum Disorders [PIMD/ASD] to learn.

Since receiving a permanent visa, and arriving in Australia in March 2003, he has presented seminars and day workshops to a number of Special Development Schools as well as to Governmental and Non Governmental agencies, including the Communication Resource Centre, Melbourne, and South Australia Intellectual Disability Services Council.

On arriving in Australia he toured the country presenting seminars and training days to Speech Pathologists, Psychologists and Special Educators, and related professionals in each state, at the invitation of the Australian Group on Severe Communication Impairment [AGOSCI]. Subsequently he has also worked with Parent Groups, Care Providers and Adult/Children Residential Services. As well as being requested to present several keynote papers and supplementary workshops at a range of National and State Conferences, he is also frequently requested to provide consultation days that focus on individual learners or on issues of curriculum development or service delivery.

He is currently living in Melbourne where he acts in an advisory and consultancy role with a number of Melbourne Special Development Schools and other agencies that provide services for people who experience profound intellectual disabilities in association with ASD or multiple physical and sensory impairments. He holds an ongoing position at Bayside Special Developmental School in Moorabbin, Melbourne, where he is the Intensive Interaction Coordinator following the schools innovative I.I. pilot project. In addition to delivering staff training, an 18month research project into the efficacy of Intensive Interaction was carried out in the school, the detail of which is to be published. The Bayside Pilot project is now being replicated at Redhill School, Brisbane and Wangee Park School in SW Sydney.

Mark has successfully completed Victoria Institute of Teachings Merit and Equity Training and has full teaching registration in Victoria. While working at Melland School in Manchester U.K., with children with high support needs and profound learning disabilities, he completed his Ph.D. in the area of early cognition and unintentional communication as well as a number of other publications.

Through his research, he has developed a rationale for the delivery of teaching and therapy, based on a cognitive approach to learning and the development of understanding about communication. This approach does not depend on models of typical infant development, or how we acquire knowledge, but concerns itself with how we use it. The main focus of his work is with pre-, or un- intentional communicators, and those clients who are demonstrating emerging intentionality.

In addition to working as a teacher at Melland School in Manchester for over 17 years, he has worked for 3 years for University of Manchesters Department of Educational Support and Inclusion. Here he was involved in the preparation and presentation of a number of courses and distance learning modules relating to Profound Intellectual and Multiple Disability and contributed to a number of post graduate courses at Manchester Metropolitan University and to distance learning units and study schools for Birmingham University School of Education. He was also involved both as a Critical Friend and Consultant in the development of the Q.C.A.s recent document Planning, teaching and assessing the curriculum for pupils with learning difficulties for the UK Department for Education and Employment.

In November 2002, he was requested by the British Council to make a 3 week visit to Buenos Aires, and La Plata, Argentina to provide an intensive course for special educators, with additional seminars and lectures to neurologists, education service providers and parents groups.