RDI: Relationship Development Intervention

Since last fall, my husband and I have been working with Sonya Lovegrove, an RDI Consultant in Training.  She's located in Sault Ste Marie, Canada and drives to Marquette every week or every few weeks to work on lessons with us.  I learned through the UP Autism Yahoo group that she was seeking families to work with shortly after I had heard, from about three different sources, what a good program RDI was.  I had already bought a now out of date book about the program, bought it because I liked it so much when I reviewed a inter-library loan copy.

This was the same time we were receiving the diagnosis, being referred to try ABA therapy, and learning we do not qualify for and cannot afford Pathways' services.  Since Sonya was working on her certification, she needed to have two families who would commit to work with her through the entire RDI program (about a year long), and she was willing to do her part for free.  We agreed to pay the $600 for a year's worth of time on the RDI online educational program, buy a digital camera so we could record our assignments, learn how edit and download video clips, and do all our homework. 

I know there is a lot of debate out there as to whether ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis), the old tried and true method of working with ASD kids, or RDI or Floortime or whatever other route you take is the best route.  I am not an expert, and as far as I can tell the experts don't agree.  So all I can say is this is what we are doing now, and I like it enough to keep with it. 

One of the things I like about RDI is it so centered on training the parents.  The big R in RDI is all about the relationship between child and parent.  They talk about how typically children learn from their parents and how that relationship is broken down between child and parent when ASD is present.  The consultant does evaluate the child, but the evaluation has to do with how the child works with the parents.  The consultant spends most of her time working with the parents to help them better work their children.

Lately we've been doing exercises in co-regulation and working on our communication style.   Last fall we learned that studies have been done comparing regular conversational patterns with typical adults and typical adults and children with how we speak with our ASD children.  In regular conversation we do a whole lot more descriptive or declarative talk, and when we talk to our ASD children we use almost all imperative language:  do this, do that, etc.   Sonya gave me this link to a podcast that I think does a great job of explaining the difference between declarative and imperative communication and how to modify your communication style.

If you're curious about RDI, here is a link to the main RDI website.  And here is a link to Sonya's website.  As I said, she is located in the SOO, but she is willing to come and talk to our group if people are interested in learning more about RDI.