Abstract
The challenge of inclusion makes timely a review of the assumptions and precepts about teaching and learning that have dominated the discourse of special education. These have led to methodological and technical predilections which we argue have been damaging for pedagogy and for learners, often moving the focus away from the tacit knowledge and reflective skill of the teacher to a set of formulaic prescriptions for practice. This is true of special education generally and of the education of those with severe learning disabilities in particular. In this paper we urge a move to reinstate teachers’ confidence in their own knowledge and skills. We develop our argument using an exemplar of a naturalistic approach for teaching people with severe disabilities. The approach, Intensive Interaction, originated in the UK and aims to enhance the quality of teacher‐learner interaction by drawing from processes observed in caregiver‐infant interaction.