Dr. Dave Hewett has been working in the field of special education for 40 years. He was headteacher at Harperbury Hospital School throughout the 1980s, where he and the team worked on the development of Intensive Interaction, producing the first publications and first research on Intensive Interaction, resulting in his doctorate. With Melanie Nind he produced the first Intensive Interaction book in 1994. Since 1990 he has been an independent consultant, continuing to publish extensively and work on the development and dissemination of the approach. Dave also publishes and gives courses on challenging behaviour issues, though as he maintains in the challenging behaviour section of this book, 'behaviour difficulties are communication difficulties'. It is therefore not a separate topic.  He is now director of the Intensive Interaction Institute, travelling and broadcasting the Intensive Interaction message increasingly worldwide.