Yorkshire grandmother honoured for work with autism sufferers

But 76-year-old Phoebe Caldwell's work, reaching isolated and disturbed children with autism, sees her services in demand from schools, health workers and families across the country and beyond.

In a career spanning more than 30 years she has helped thousands of families affected by autism through face-to-face working with children and adults, training parents and teachers, and producing a series of books and films about her work.

The mother of five and grandmother of nine from High Bentham, North Yorkshire, has now become only the second ever winner of the Times Sternberg Award, recognising the outstanding contribution to society made by people over the age of 70.

Mrs Caldwell said she was honoured to receive the award and keen to use it raise awareness of her work.

And having seen the impact of being able to communicate with severely autistic children, Mrs Caldwell has no plans to retire or slow down at the age of 76.

"When you get calls from parents and families who are desperate, who do not know where to turn and who you know that you can help them then it something you have to do," she said. " It is also the most fascinating work."

Mrs Caldwell uses a technique called Intensive Interaction to help communicate with children and adults who are severely autistic by repeating their "body language and rhythms" to establish contact.

"Every individual is different but the principle is the same. You have to find out what interests them, what they like doing.

"Listen to their rhythms and then use them to find a language through which you can communicate.

"People who are autistic have problems processing information; their brain is like a kaleidoscope where nothing ever settles, so what we are trying to do is give them signals and patterns that they can recognise.

"This shifts their attention from what they are doing by themselves to something they can do with others."

Mrs Caldwell says this approach has led to significant improvements in the behaviour and ability to interact of almost every child she has worked with.

She was nominated for the award by Dr Suzanne Zeedyk, of Dundee University's school of psychology, whose students analysed every frame of one of her films to analyse the impact intensive interaction has.

In her nomination Dr Zeedyk said: "Over the past 30 years Phoebe has worked with over 1,000 adults and children, including some of the most disturbed and isolated individuals in the country. Some have been excluded from services because staff are so frightened by their 'challenging behaviour'.

"Yet after a few hours with Phoebe they are sitting peacefully, sharing the moment, perhaps through finger play or rhythm-tapping, because she has been able to use their body language as a means of communication.

"She teaches this sensory technique to carers, allowing them, in the words of one family, to 'rediscover the joy of our daughter'."

Mrs Caldwell has produced four training films and six books and regularly works with schools and health trusts to train staff on how to employ intensive interaction.

Her career started when she worked as a nurse in Farley Hospital in Bristol and was placed in charged of a ward of 11 men with severe learning disabilities.

From there she was introduced to Intensive Interaction by the late Geraint Ephraim, a psychologist at the Harperbury Hospital School in Hertfordshire.

Mrs Caldwell said: "I didn't invent it and I am not the only person doing it – anyone can learn to do it you don't have to be an expert but when it works you see their world expanding."