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- Relationship Development Intervention (RDI™) is the product of an ongoing program of clinical development and research begun in 1996. Our mission is to produce powerful methods to remediate the core deficits of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD.) Our goal is to provide individuals with ASD the cognitive, emotional, communicative, and social tools needed to obtain the quality of life, which their disorder typically deprives them of.
- RDI™ represents a new generation of autism treatment. It is different than “first generation” intervention programs because it is geared towards remediation and not just compensation. A primary assumption of RDI is that we can, through focused guided participation in challenging activities, increase the flexibility and complexity of neural pathways of people with ASD. Modern neurological research has highlighted the incredible plasticity of the human brain throughout the lifespan. In addition non-medical cognitive interventions have been successful in changing brain pathways of people with other disorders like Dyslexia, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and Depression.
- RDI objectives were developed based on review of research findings in typical child development and careful study of the critical differences in the development of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. A treatment objective is chosen only when there is a research consensus concluding that the deficit area is universal to people with ASD and is an essential building block to eventual quality of life
- RDI is a family-centered treatment program. The bulk of treatment resources are invested in preparing parents to act as “participant” guides, creating daily opportunities for their child to succeed in increasingly challenging settings, characterized by ongoing variation and non-linear, unpredictable change. Both fathers and mothers are essential participants (Current estimates of father’s participation in RDI are over 90%).
- RDI emphasizes constructing safe, but challenging experiences, motivating the ASD child to give up their static safety. Safety in dynamic systems emerges from perceiving and managing the regularity of patterns, amidst ongoing change and novelty. Prior to introducing uncertainty, children first participate as co-regulators and so perceive themselves as having the ability to actively & successfully manage potential disruptions and changes. Each time the child masters a more complex understanding of regulation, parental guides add a small piece of new uncertainty to the predictable framework. Experiences of successful mastery of uncertainty are stockpiled, as parents make sure to help the child capture these critical memories and build an experiential repository in gradually more complex environments.
- Parents are trained to implement RDI through the following methods:
- small-group education
- consultant modeling,
- regular evaluation and planning sessions,
- involvement with “veteran” parents
- regular video-taped review of samples of parent-child performance in the home
- Parents learn to implement the following critical steps of coaching:
- Slow down, simplify and amplify the information feedback system, so parents and children more easily understand one another’s actions and so the child has the opportunity to focus resources on developing mindfulness
- Alter the communication environment to emphasize communication that is a) based on thought and mental engagement, b) oriented towards experience-sharing and c) enables the child to process “broadband” elements of communication including prosody, facial expressiveness, gesture and context, along with language
- Carefully modify daily activities to enhance their potential to provide safe, but challenging opportunities for mental discovery, based upon the child’s developmental readiness. The child’s entire day has the potential to function as a remediation setting
- Gradually increase the child’s participation as a more equal partner in ongoing co-regulation of naturally occurring
interactions, which require participants to adapt their actions on a moment-to-moment basis, based on the prior and antici pated actions of their partners.
- Spotlight competent actions when faced with situations containing uncertainty and alterations from expected outcomes, to make sure that the child retains episodic memories to guide future actions and provide increased self efficacy.
- Generalize the guided participation process into all aspects of family life and then into new and more complex settings in a gradual, systematic basis
- RDI is highly cost-effective, with yearly treatment costs approximately 1/5 that of one-on-one behavioral intervention programs. Once parents are trained to function as effective coaches to their children, need for ancillary support staff is minimal. Parental success increases their sense of competence and empowerment and allows for easier generalization of program principles into every moment of the family’s daily life.
Information used with permission from the Connections Center™ Gutstein, 2006 RDI®
Gutstein, 2006 ©. |
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