Relationship Development Intervention (RDI)

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Hello all,
Is anyone doing this with thier children?
connectionscenter.com
Laure

We don't have a lot of the resources to do RDI but I have two of the books for it and have been looking into it.

I too have been trying to learn more about it and considering it.

Hi Laurie and everyone,

I don't know if you will see this being 3 months later, but I have been using RDI with my kids since last summer. It is really great! Hope you have had some opportunity to look into it further.

Hi Laurie, just Sue, and others,

I am a public school SLP just beginning to learn about RDI. I attended a 2-day workshop in February, and have been accepted into their program to become an RDI Consultant. This is expensive (about $9,000 worth of training) -- but, the little bit I have used RDI activities has shown me that this is a VERY POWERFUL form of intervention.

I have felt, when using it, that it gets to the core deficits of autism spectrum disorders in a way that nothing I have tried in the past has done. In addition -- it is so much fun and such a natural way of doing things. I also think its development as a parent-delivered remediation is a real strength -- mom and dad can do it themselves, under the direction of a consultant, and not have to pay for hours and hours of services from others.

I will begin my training in Houston next January. Until then, I am reading and learning as much as I can about RDI. The website for RDI information is: www.rdiconnect.com

--Bobbie

Hi, Ghosthunter,

I thought about how I would summarize Relationship Development Intervention (RDI) and then I realized that some quotes from Dr. Gutstein, one of it's founders, would probably be most helpful. On the website www.rdiconnect.com he states that after some research and reflection on ways of helping kids with autism spectrum disorders he
"...soon realized how even the brightest children on the spectrum, those with high IQ’s and excellent language, those who achieved in school and seemed well-behaved, were missing skills that a typical six month old does so easily. I also realized that I could not teach even these “highest functioning” children age-appropriate skills because they were missing the early foundation that is essential for future success in the complex, always changing environments that comprise most of real life."

Having come to that realization, Steven Gutstein and his wife, Dr. Rachelle Sheely, set about to build a (research-based) sequence of those interactional skills that infants acquire during the first months of life. They then devised and implemented a set of interventions to guide children (and young adults) through those natural steps of relationship development. This is a step-by-step program that seeks first to build the learner's motivation to relate to other humans, and then to build skills for social interaction and further development of human relationships.

Since the parent/child relationship is the first and most basic, the day to day interventions of RDI are done by parents and children together. The stage in the sequence at which the learner enters the program is determined by the administration of an assessment (done by the RDI consultant) and throughout the course of treatment sample parent/child sessions are videotaped so the consultant can review them and provide feedback and guidance to the parents.

What is it? It is a way of working/playing together (parent(s) and child) for 5 or 6 hours a week that causes the child to find enjoyment in interaction, that motivates them to (for example) establish a shared reference with their communicative partner, to share emotions, perform activites and develop shared memories of events (episodes) in their lives. Eventually kids move from parent/child [master/novice] pairs to peer dyads. The program takes kids from the beginning "novice" stage of relating to the more fully-developed "partner" stage.

Families and consultants come up with all kinds of activities that accomplish the developmental goals of this program -- from playing hide and seek to jointly carrying trays of glasses filled to the brim and (jointly) not spilling a single drop, to simple (or elaborate) silly word games played in the car on the way to an appointment somewhere.

I was amazed, for example, at how much eye-contact my ASD student started using when my goal became having him watch out for whatever bizarre thing I was going to do next while walking down the hall. Crashing into him, tickling him, walking backward or sideways, or stopping entirely -- giving him some tolerable unpredictability -- worked wonders.

"Much madness makes divinest sense", as Emily Dickinson would say -- especially in relationship Development Intervention.

I hope this description helps. For LOTS more info visit www.rdiconnect.com

--Bobbie

We Have Been to RDI training and have tried to implement it with our son (4-5 Years old at the time). Some of RDI is vary helpful for thing such as to see a different point of view in the treatment of Autism (one that is not based on ABA), It can also be fun and some of the principle are useful in life, however it is No Cure.
The RDI people charge a lot of money for parents training and promise the world, that can lead to disappointment because in many cases it has limited results.

Has there been any independent studies of RDI?

BeeBee

Ronnie

I'm sure you are right when you say there is NO CURE.
However, since I am morally opposed to doing ABA myself, I had to find some approach to ASD, or hang up my gunbelt and spurs, so to speak.

I take all the advertising with a grain of salt, and am actually repelled by it, myself.
In spite of that, I find RDI both powerful and appealing. It definitely meshes with my personal style, as a professional.

As far as how much it costs for parents to hire professional consultants -- I know that things cost money. I will be paying more than $9,000 from my own pocket to take the training. As a public school SLP, I will not be getting anything "extra" from the school district for having the capability of serving in this capacity.

Will I go into part-time private practice, to recoup my investment in this? I may have to. Hopefully, my work will be of value to someone.

--Bobbie

Bee Bee,

You asked whether there have been any "independent" studies of RDI. and by "independent" I take it you mean research done by people other than Gutstein and Sheely. To that question the answer is "no."

HOWEVER -- the Winter 2005 issue of Autism Spectrum Quarterly contains an article comparing outcomes of children who participated in RDI for 16 months with those who had been assessed for the RDI program, had not participated in it, but had continued with their other therapies for 16 months, and then were re-assessed:

"In a preliminary attempt to study RDI’s effectiveness, we selected the following
two measures: 1) improvement on the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) (Lord, Rutter,DiLavore, & Risi, 2002), and 2) increased independent functioning in educational
settings. Over a sixteen month period, we compared 31 children with ASD between the ages of two and nine—seventeenchildren whose families had participated in RDI, and fourteen
children of similar diagnoses, ages, cognitive,and language functioning who participated in other treatments. The non-RDI group averaged over 25 hours per week of therapist contact, while
the RDI group averaged a little over 5 hours per week.....

"After sixteen months, 70% of the RDI children had improved in at least one diagnostic category on the ADOS. In contrast, not a single child in the non-RDI group had improved in any
diagnostic category. RDI and non-RDI children did not initially differ in educational placement.
At initial evaluation only one child in each group functioned independently in a regular education classroom. By the second evaluation, however, thirteen RDI children were attending regular
education settings without significant support. In contrast not a single child in the non-RDI group had moved from a special to a regular education setting during the sixteen month interval."

The Autism Spectrum Quarterly article, entitled Relationship Development Intervention: Developing a Treatment Program to Address the Unique Social and Emotional Deficits in Autism Spectrum Disorders by Steven E. Gutstein, Ph.D. is available for download at www.rdiconnect.com, as is a report of the outcome study, titled Preliminary Evaluation of the Relationship Development Intervention Program. You do have to register at the website in order to download articles, but registration is free.

I hope this helps.

--Bobbie

Yes, it does help, Bobbie.

Thanks!

BeeBee

You're welcome, Bee Bee.

--Bobbie

I agree with every word you wrote. ABA is a problem for many of us and RDI can help most kids a little and some kids a lot.
It is great that there will be more people like you out there that want to help and there is nothing wrong with you charging a fee for your service.
I do think that the connection center should have your kind of approach. I think the component of cashing in on RDI on their part is overdone and they promise to much, otherwise there is only positive in adding RDI to an child life.

Thanks for your kind understanding, Guest.

Have you been to any of their introductory sessions?

My feeling is that, once RDI catches on, the Connections Center won't be able to keep it for themselves -- because it is too powerful, too research-based, sensible, humane and enjoyable.

Once RDI goes mainstream -- in 5 years or so, after thousands of parents and children will have successfully used it -- it will be a method taught to clinicians in psychology, rehab, education, etc. Right now Gutstein and Sheely are giving it the "hard sell", which is unfortunate, because that kind of money-making approach on their part creates a VERY LEGITIMATE skepticism.

However -- this is their "window of opportunity" in terms of making money from this discovery. They might as well go for it, because once these very basic ideas are turned loose they will take on a life of their own.

--Bobbie

Is there any sort of similar therapy for adults as a lot of us weren't diagnosed with autism until we were adolescents or adults so we didn't have any of these kinds of interventions.

I am not sure about the idea of saying we have autism disorders as having a "disorder" presumes there is something "wrong" that has to be "fixed". I'd prefer to think I have an autism "condition" rather than a "disorder".