A Quality of Life

A Message from Dr. Gutstein

By 1990, I had developed an excellent reputation in the Houston area for treating children and teens with Autism, Asperger's Syndrome and PDD. I prided myself on keeping up with the latest treatments and my intervention methods were "cutting edge." My patients achieved measurable results. They made more eye contact. They possessed a greater repertoire of social scripts. They were better socialized and better tolerated by their peers. They could follow rules and were motivated to make friends and achieve in life.

Yet despite this apparent success, I increasingly felt like I was letting my patients down. Not one of the children I treated could maintain the topic of his conversation with a pal, or share a tender moment. None could read social cues or were socially spontaneous. None were able to rapidly adapt to new situations, were flexible, or had real friends. None felt that moment-to-moment emotional connection the rest of us rely on and live for. Something was tragically missing.

I began spending hundreds of hours in libraries, reading everything I could find about typical relationship development as well as the development of people with Autism. I attended numerous workshops and spoke to leading world experts. I was determined to find the "missing piece" of the puzzle.

I 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. While traditional methods had been a useful and welcome relief to parents in their time, I realized advances in autism interventions had not kept up with research. As a psychologist trained to fill the gaps between theory and practice, I just could not accept the consequences of waiting for others to do something about the tragedy I saw unfolding around me every day.

Researchers had compiled years of findings which explained this issue clearly, but I was surprised to find that their hundreds of studies were not reflected in the traditional clinical methods that were available. There were no methods that carefully assessed each child's capabilities and taught them at their level of competence.

Imagine trying to teach a child with Dyslexia to read without first carefully understanding whether they had the foundations of reading, like decoding, in place. It would be an exercise in futility. The same applies to people on the autism spectrum.

Despite the intense desire of parents for scientifically proven intervention methods, clinicians, including myself, were not translating the wealth of research knowledge into a systematic clinical program to address the core problems faced by all individuals on the autism spectrum. That is what I set out to do.

Now years later, I am now continually improving this new way. We have learned not only to teach the sophisticated skills which make a real difference, but have developed powerful tools to help parents teach these skills to their children. These days, I frequently hear comments like, "This program speaks to a missing piece that we could all acknowledge but didn't have a name for." This missing piece, I call Dynamic Intelligence; and the program, Relationship Development Intervention Program for Autism Spectrum Disorders--the RDI® Program.

Steven E. Gutstein,
Ph.D. February, 2004

A Quality of Life