Inklings is designed for any baby (between 6 and 18 months of age) who is showing early differences in their social interaction and communication development. Families who may benefit from Inklings include:
- A baby who is showing delays or differences in their early social interaction and communication development.
- Babies who are not yet demonstrating a range of expected social communication behaviours for their age.
- Parents who are worried about their baby's social and/or communication development.
Inklings is a program that supports parents and caregivers (hereafter, parents) to recognise, interpret and attune to their baby’s unique communication behaviours, and to respond to their baby in a way that shows understanding of their baby’s desires, intentions and needs.
The program is baby led, meaning it guides parents to follow the natural interests and preferences of their baby, rather than encouraging baby to engage in interests or behaviours that are not natural to them. By helping parents to adapt their own communication style to their babies’ early developmental differences, babies are able to learn in a social environment that is adapted to meet their unique needs.
It is important to emphasise that the parent-baby interactions are in no way a cause of neurodevelopmental delays or conditions. The aim of Inklings is to help parents understand the early developmental differences of their baby, so that baby and parent engage in meaningful and supportive two-way interactions from the earliest point possible.
Inklings involves up to 10 sessions over a period of six months. Sessions occur at approximately fortnightly intervals. Each session focuses on the unique needs of each individual parent and baby.
Video feedback is used to support parent learning throughout the program. This involves the practitioner recording a video of the parent interacting with their baby, followed by the parent and practitioner reviewing the video and discussing key moments that illustrate specific messages for the session.
There is extensive evidence that video feedback is a powerful way for parents to gain insight into their baby’s behaviours and communication cues and reflect on their own role in interactions with their baby.
During video feedback, the practitioner and the parent focus on describing baby’s thoughts, emotions, and behaviours through interpreting baby’s physical gestures, vocal sounds, and emotional expressions. Through being supported to understand their baby’s thoughts, emotions and desires, parents feel more empowered to attune and attend to their baby’s unique needs.
There is decades of developmental research that has demonstrated that parents are a powerful influence on their baby’s development. There is strong evidence that parental interaction styles that are sensitive and responsive to their baby’s communication cues can support their baby’s development, including social communication and cognitive skills.
The efficacy and safety of the Inklings Program has been demonstrated across a pilot study, two rigorous randomised controlled trials and multiple human research ethics committees. The program has been found to be safe, acceptable and beneficial for baby and their parent.
The program is delivered by trained practitioners with expertise in early child development. During Inklings sessions, practitioners work with the parent and the parent interacts with their baby. Both baby and the parent’s wellbeing are a priority during the sessions.
The Inklings Program is not focused on parenting, but rather on observing and understanding baby. The Inklings Program and Inklings practitioners respect that parents know their baby best - the program and practitioners do not judge parenting behaviours or baby’s behaviour. The program is also welcoming, accepting and respectful of individual and cultural differences.
Inklings welcomes all families, including First Nations’ families. Telethon Kids Institute is currently leading a First Nations’-focussed consultation in Western Australia. The key aims of the consultation are to hear First Nations’ perspectives on the accessibility, suitability, and cultural safety of the Inklings program across metropolitan, regional and remote communities across the state. The consultation project will inform potential adaptations to enhance the cultural safety and accessibility and of the program for First Nations’ families. The consultation will also inform the suitability of the program for regional and remote communities in Western Australia.
This consultation involves senior Aboriginal staff and researchers and is conducted in accordance with the Guidelines for the Standards for the conduct of Aboriginal Health Research (Telethon Kids Institute). Over 40 consultations across Western Australia, including in remote communities, have occurred to date.
The Inklings Program is structured around one consistent parent participating in each session. This means that the same person needs to attend each session and be able to commit to the six-month program. However, a second caregiver (where practical and available) is also encouraged to be present in the sessions.
No, your baby will not be disadvantaged. The program has been carefully considered to ensure it can be delivered via telehealth. The program uses video feedback (i.e., a practitioner reviews brief videos of you and your baby interacting), so it is well suited to telehealth delivery.
Inklings and iBASIS
The Inklings Program is based on the iBASIS (2023) manual which is the protocol used to train practitioners to deliver the program to families. Previous iterations of the manual were called iBASIS-VIPP and are referred to in research papers prior to 2023. The 2023 iBASIS manual incorporated learnings from the research, updates in terminology preferences (particularly in aligning with neuroaffirming language) and for a more clinical audience. For more details, please see our Research page.
The iBASIS manual (2023) is used as part of the Inklings training of practitioners and is required to be used in this context. People who train to become Inklings Practitioners are provided access to the manual as part of their training.
Telethon Kids Institute and the University of Manchester jointly own the intellectual property on the iBASIS manual (2023), not any individual researcher or employee.
Inklings Research
Inklings (through iBASIS research) has some of the highest quality evidence available for a social communication program in this age group. Read more about it via our research page here.
Inklings has been developed over a period of a decade by an international team of health professionals and researchers through a pilot and two randomised controlled trials. The studies were conducted with a very high level of rigour and included longitudinal follow up assessments of the children up to 2 years after the end of the program.
The outcome of the research showed that babies who received the program were found to have significant developmental gains in their social interaction and communication abilities, and parents were better able to adapt their communication style to the needs of their baby. The clinical trials had replicated findings, which provides high confidence in the results.
As with all rigorous clinical trials, the safety of participants was monitored closely through the trials and overseen by human research ethics committees. No safety concerns were identified.
Inklings and Autism
Neurodiversity is the concept that there is natural variation in how people’s brains work and how people experience, understand and interact with the world.
Many children have variations in their brain development, including those seen in autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and dyslexia. These children are often described as neurodivergent.
While it is rare to diagnose these conditions in children younger than 2 years of age, research has shown that a proportion of babies showing early social and communication delays or differences are neurodivergent and may meet clinical criteria for autism in later childhood.
For more information please see Raising Children Network website.
Inklings supports parents to understand and appreciate their baby’s communication, with the aim of promoting more enjoyable and meaningful interactions. This is a positive outcome for all parents and babies, including neurodivergent children.
The program seeks to affirm neurodiversity by supporting parents to understand the unique skills and abilities of their baby, and to empower parents with the confidence to engage with their baby in a way that makes their baby feel understood. The program is baby led, meaning it guides parents to follow the natural interests and preferences of their child, rather than encouraging the baby to engage in interests or behaviours that are not natural to their child.
Inklings does not ‘prevent autism’, and this is not an aim of the program.
Autistic children are born with neurodivergent brains, which extensive research has found is largely genetic in origin.
The aim of the program is to support parents to create an environment around the child that is adapted to the baby’s individual learning style. Inklings is not conditioning the child’s behaviour, making them mask, or seeking to change a baby’s neurodivergence. It is supporting the connection between parent and baby to enhance baby's authentic social and communication skills, which in turn helps the baby interact in an environment that is adapted to meet their unique needs.
Many babies eligible to receive Inklings will not be neurodivergent, while some babies may be tracking on a developmental pathway for an autism diagnosis in later childhood. Clinical trials have found that Inklings can reduce the emergence of developmental challenges that are linked to an autism diagnosis. This is not because the babies are masking, but rather due to genuine developmental gains. The babies remain neurodivergent, but they are not showing the same level of developmental barriers that lead them to have higher social communication support needs.
While clinical trials have shown that Inklings can support social and communication development, a proportion of babies will still require support after the program.
Inklings has benefited from the input of neurodivergent people throughout its development. Most recently, a group of autistic and non-autistic researchers conducted an international consultation with more than 100 autistic adults regarding supports for very young children. As part of the consultation, autistic adults were asked about a range of strategies that can be used to support learning in babies. Strong agreement in favour of the use of a variety of strategies was found, including:
- Changing the environment to meet a baby's needs
- Promoting positive, warm interactions
- Reflecting on how a baby communicates
- Taking a baby's perspective
- Responding quickly to a baby's communication
- Natural teaching opportunities in daily routines
- Use of video-guided feedback
These are strategies that form the core of the Inklings Program.
Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) is an approach to understanding and changing behaviour. Programs that use ABA often involve a trained therapist/technician working with a child with a diagnosis of a developmental condition, such as autism, to increase behaviours that are considered desirable and decrease behaviours that are considered problematic. Positive reinforcement, such as providing a reward for demonstrating a desired behaviour, is a principle used in ABA programs to change the child’s behaviour or teach a new skill.
Inklings is fundamentally different to ABA:
- Inklings does not aim to teach baby specific behaviours and it does not use ABA principles such as rewards.
- Inklings does not aim to change baby's behaviour in any way. It does not seek to make baby be more 'typical'.
- Inklings is baby-led.
- Inklings practitioners do not work directly with the baby. They work with the parent to support them to better understand their baby.
Inklings supports the parent to better understand their baby’s natural communication and behaviour, and to respond in a way that is accepting and respectful of these natural differences in behaviour and interaction. Developmental shifts in a baby following Inklings occur because of baby’s social environment better suiting their needs.