Relationship Development Intervention with Young Children: Social and Emotional Development Activities for Asperger Syndrome, Autism, PDD and NLD by Steven E. Gutstein and Rachelle K. Sheely, is a handbook of activities for young children, using the RDI (Relationship Development Intervention) method. The RDI method is geared towards teaching social skills in context of their purposes, with a focus on developing and maintaining relationships.
So, say you have a child that doesn't look at the people they're talking to. This is a problem, because neurotypical people assume you aren't paying attention if you don't look at them while you talk. (It's also a problem because some nuances of communication are non-verbal, but it's worth pointing out that it's a really arbitrary requirement from my perspective.) Some programs would take this hypothetical child and try to teach them eye contact directly. 85% looking at the person you're talking with, 15% looking away.
That isn't good enough for the RDI folks. Instead of simply teaching the skill, they teach the foundations of that skill. To teach eye contact and paying attention to the person you're talking to, they make the environment and play require that eye contact. If the child doesn't pay attention, the activity pauses, restarts, or ends depending on the directions. This style of teaching is potentially a really good idea. It's a more natural than teaching by rote, and theoretically a more effective way of teaching social skills. (I have to say theoretical, because I've never seen statistics on the subject.)
This book has activities to teach attention, cooperative play, flexibility, voice volume, hand-eye coordination, expression-reading, emotion-recognition, vocal tone recognition, give-and-take conversational skills, etc. Reading through these, I didn't really have objections to the skills specifically chosen. The same is mostly true of chapter 2, where they describe their components of relationships. I did take some exception to the first criteria, which was "Enjoyment" and insisted that "Friends must be enjoyable, exciting companions." I'm not sure I've ever been an "enjoyable, exciting" person. But perhaps the book is specifically referring to friends in childhood, which might explain why I never had friends at that age.
I had a really hard time getting into this book. It started on a trio of bad notes. The first was the introduction quote. Y'know how some people put dedications to people or favorite quotes at the very front of a book, before even the introduction section where the book itself is discussed? They're usually inspirational quotes, or at least amusing ones. The quote in the front of this book is a Bible verse. Specifically, it's a Bible verse from Ecclesiastes. Otherwise known as the book of the Bible that discusses, in great depth, how everything from riches to wisdom to hard work is pointless, because everyone dies and everything is a waste of time without God.
Now, I actually like Ecclesiastes because I'm weird like that. But this quote is just a little snippet talking about how two people are better than one, because when one falls the other can help him up, and feel-good stuff like that. But as a reasonably intelligent, somewhat educated human being, I really have to take exception to a book that purports to be full of helpful advice, quoting from the most depressing book in the Bible with blatant disregard for the rest of that book's contents. So that annoyed me.
The second thing that annoyed me was the book's promise of results, with apparent disregard for the child that goes into the program. There is literally a list of "social changes" that you will apparently, without fail, see in your child assuming you do the things in this book. I don't know about you, but I've found, personally, that people with autism vary widely, and expecting a single program, even an excellent and relatively flexible one, to magically produce the same (exceedingly idealistic) results in every autistic child it's applied to... well, it seems arrogant and absurd, frankly.
The last thing that annoyed me at the start of reading the book was its language choices. The book is meant to be used by parents, teachers/special ed teachers, and therapists, but the language used is pedantic and formal. I found it cumbersome to understand, and this is coming from someone with a BA in psychology and a well-practiced skill in reading... I don't envy any parents, particularly ones that aren't college-educated, the experience of trying to read through this book and adapt the activities for use at home.
That said, a lot of the activities could probably work reasonably well, if used properly. The earliest ones seemed to rely strongly upon the "Coach" (their name for the parent, therapist, teacher, etc) and their ability to bluff (or be really good at taking on and projecting) their emotions. The activities are made fun, not because they're actually fun, but because the Coach is instructed to smile, laugh, and engage in "fun" behaviors.
The activities work their way toward teaching the child that interaction, especially interaction with their peers, is fun. I don't think I've ever seen the word "joy" printed so many times in such a dry context. I can only hope these methods really do work, and in the long term, because the way I tend to approach interactions is not at all with joy, and more with a general cautious neutrality. Sort of the way you approach a friendly but inexplicably venomous dog. It probably won't bite you and cause you suffering, but some days you just really don't want to take that chance.
My only other concern was that the activities listed didn't seem to account for an comorbid problems, particularly sound sensitivity or touch sensitivity. The earliest activities seemed to suggest tickling and roughhousing as "fun" and "enjoyable" activities with children. And I can tell you I have hated being tickled since I was quite young, so that really wouldn't have worked well. I can't speak so strongly for roughhousing, but considering the fact that I was bullied quite young, I can't imagine I'd like it all that much more. Preusmably situations like mine would be accounted for by a therapist with more training than simply this book... but I do wonder what their tactic would be when someone with sound sensitivity covers their ears and curls up at the first sign of other children and their loud, shrieky noises.
So, say you have a child that doesn't look at the people they're talking to. This is a problem, because neurotypical people assume you aren't paying attention if you don't look at them while you talk. (It's also a problem because some nuances of communication are non-verbal, but it's worth pointing out that it's a really arbitrary requirement from my perspective.) Some programs would take this hypothetical child and try to teach them eye contact directly. 85% looking at the person you're talking with, 15% looking away.
That isn't good enough for the RDI folks. Instead of simply teaching the skill, they teach the foundations of that skill. To teach eye contact and paying attention to the person you're talking to, they make the environment and play require that eye contact. If the child doesn't pay attention, the activity pauses, restarts, or ends depending on the directions. This style of teaching is potentially a really good idea. It's a more natural than teaching by rote, and theoretically a more effective way of teaching social skills. (I have to say theoretical, because I've never seen statistics on the subject.)
This book has activities to teach attention, cooperative play, flexibility, voice volume, hand-eye coordination, expression-reading, emotion-recognition, vocal tone recognition, give-and-take conversational skills, etc. Reading through these, I didn't really have objections to the skills specifically chosen. The same is mostly true of chapter 2, where they describe their components of relationships. I did take some exception to the first criteria, which was "Enjoyment" and insisted that "Friends must be enjoyable, exciting companions." I'm not sure I've ever been an "enjoyable, exciting" person. But perhaps the book is specifically referring to friends in childhood, which might explain why I never had friends at that age.
I had a really hard time getting into this book. It started on a trio of bad notes. The first was the introduction quote. Y'know how some people put dedications to people or favorite quotes at the very front of a book, before even the introduction section where the book itself is discussed? They're usually inspirational quotes, or at least amusing ones. The quote in the front of this book is a Bible verse. Specifically, it's a Bible verse from Ecclesiastes. Otherwise known as the book of the Bible that discusses, in great depth, how everything from riches to wisdom to hard work is pointless, because everyone dies and everything is a waste of time without God.
Now, I actually like Ecclesiastes because I'm weird like that. But this quote is just a little snippet talking about how two people are better than one, because when one falls the other can help him up, and feel-good stuff like that. But as a reasonably intelligent, somewhat educated human being, I really have to take exception to a book that purports to be full of helpful advice, quoting from the most depressing book in the Bible with blatant disregard for the rest of that book's contents. So that annoyed me.
The second thing that annoyed me was the book's promise of results, with apparent disregard for the child that goes into the program. There is literally a list of "social changes" that you will apparently, without fail, see in your child assuming you do the things in this book. I don't know about you, but I've found, personally, that people with autism vary widely, and expecting a single program, even an excellent and relatively flexible one, to magically produce the same (exceedingly idealistic) results in every autistic child it's applied to... well, it seems arrogant and absurd, frankly.
The last thing that annoyed me at the start of reading the book was its language choices. The book is meant to be used by parents, teachers/special ed teachers, and therapists, but the language used is pedantic and formal. I found it cumbersome to understand, and this is coming from someone with a BA in psychology and a well-practiced skill in reading... I don't envy any parents, particularly ones that aren't college-educated, the experience of trying to read through this book and adapt the activities for use at home.
That said, a lot of the activities could probably work reasonably well, if used properly. The earliest ones seemed to rely strongly upon the "Coach" (their name for the parent, therapist, teacher, etc) and their ability to bluff (or be really good at taking on and projecting) their emotions. The activities are made fun, not because they're actually fun, but because the Coach is instructed to smile, laugh, and engage in "fun" behaviors.
The activities work their way toward teaching the child that interaction, especially interaction with their peers, is fun. I don't think I've ever seen the word "joy" printed so many times in such a dry context. I can only hope these methods really do work, and in the long term, because the way I tend to approach interactions is not at all with joy, and more with a general cautious neutrality. Sort of the way you approach a friendly but inexplicably venomous dog. It probably won't bite you and cause you suffering, but some days you just really don't want to take that chance.
My only other concern was that the activities listed didn't seem to account for an comorbid problems, particularly sound sensitivity or touch sensitivity. The earliest activities seemed to suggest tickling and roughhousing as "fun" and "enjoyable" activities with children. And I can tell you I have hated being tickled since I was quite young, so that really wouldn't have worked well. I can't speak so strongly for roughhousing, but considering the fact that I was bullied quite young, I can't imagine I'd like it all that much more. Preusmably situations like mine would be accounted for by a therapist with more training than simply this book... but I do wonder what their tactic would be when someone with sound sensitivity covers their ears and curls up at the first sign of other children and their loud, shrieky noises.
Read This Book If
You want a primer for creating and running RDI (Relationship Development Intervention) activities for a young autistic child. This book is pretty much what it says in the title, and that's it. It's a very specific form of social skills teaching, and not a style that's intuitive in the slightest. The bones of the RDI philosophy are mentioned in this book, but if you want a more thorough explanation, you'll have to look elsewhere. I am somewhat dubious of the book's usefulness to the average parent, due to its stilted language. Especially a parent that's already overwhelmed with raising a more heavily affected autistic child. But a special education teacher or a therapist might use this book to work with a parent reasonably effectively.
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