Relationship Development Intervention
Relationship Development Intervention (RDI) is a trademarked proprietary treatment program for autism spectrum disorders (ASD), based on the belief that the development of dynamic intelligence is the key to improving the quality of life for autistic people. The program's core philosophy is that autistic people can participate in authentic emotional relationships if they are exposed to them in a gradual, systematic way. The goal of treatment is to systematically build up the motivation and tools for successfully interacting in social relationships, to correct deficits in this area that are thought to be common to all autistic people. RDI focuses on cultivating the building blocks of social connection—such as referencing, emotion sharing, coregulation, and experience sharing—that normally develop in infancy and early childhood. RDI is a family-based program, where trained consultants support families to alter their interaction and communication styles. There is a period of parent education, followed by an assessment of both the child and the child-parent relationship. After that consultants support the family through a set of specific objectives to build a "guided participation" relationship between parents and child that will allow the child to once again become a "cognitive apprentice" to the parents. Once the cognitive apprenticeship is in place, the family can move on to specific cognitive remediation objectives for the child. These are developmentally staged objectives designed to restore optimal neural connectivity through a series of "discoveries" and "elaborations". After four years, the RDI Program has evolved into RDIconnect, a company with a series of programs not only for autistics, but for other populations as well. Along with a Consultant Training program, RDIConnect now offers the Family Guided Participation Program, Dynamic Education Program and the RDI Program for ASD, each accompanied by tools that help organize, expedite and create a continuous dialogue between professional and parent. RDIConnect now applies the quality assurance, level of treatment and training that has been central to their internationally known program and to a new audience. History The RDI program was developed by the psychologist Steven Gutstein in the 1990s. Gutstein studied the means by which typical children become competent in the world of emotional relationships. He looked at the research in developmental psychology and found that early parent-infant interaction predicted later abilities in language, thinking and social development. Two books of RDI-based activities as well as a book explaining the background ideas were published in 2002, but RDI has changed significantly since then and is now only available through the RDI_LS, or learning system, accessed by trained consultants. There are now trained consultants in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, China, Japan, Singapore, India, Israel, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, and Switzerland. Latest publications by Dr. Steven Gutstein are: My Baby Can Dance - Stories of Autism, Asperger's and Success through the Relationship Development Intervention (RDI) Program (2005), The Relationship Development Intervention (RDI) Program and Education (2007), and The RDI Book - Forging New Pathways for Autism, Asperger's and PDD with the Relationship Development Intervention Program (2009). Major ideas RDI is