For some reason, the necessary MindGuiding Relationship that typically forms between parent and child during the first year of life doesn’t happen with autistic individuals–but with RDI®, it is possible to re-establish this relationship and nurture the growth mindset in your child.
Your Child and Relationships and Marriage
In the general population, there’s a spectrum of people. Not everybody is going to be a college professor, and some people are going to have jobs as an assistant at Starbucks, and other people are going to have jobs as engineers. And so when I see someone who has a job as a greeter at Starbucks and has autism and has a girlfriend, I see that as an incredible success.
Why RDI and What Is It?
With the rate of employment among ASD adults low and rates of depression and suicide high, it’s clear that something isn’t working. RDI addresses this deficit.
Autism and Marriage for Parents
My advice to RDI® parents is to make sure you and your consultant are asking, “How does everybody get on the same page and how do you come together as a family?” Not an autism family, but how do you come together as a family?
Teens, Adults & Autism
As children with autism grow up and inch closer to adulthood, there are sometimes lingering concerns–What if we didn’t do enough? What if we went in the wrong direction? What if independence isn’t possible?–but growth is possible into adulthood.
The Heart of RDI®: Your Child & Well Being Part II
RDI® focuses on well-being in children with Autism, rather than assessments and measurements, giving them independence and true quality of life.
The Heart of RDI: Your Child and Wellbeing
RDI® is a developmental pathway to gradually moving more and more and more towards self-management and self-guiding in a dynamic world.
Finding Balance After an Autism Diagnosis
For all of us who have had a child diagnosed with autism, we know that they aren’t the only person who is vulnerable in what’s going on.
Feelings that Accompany an Autism Diagnosis
All of these feelings that accompany a diagnosis of your child are ok. Other parents have felt the same way, you are not alone.
Autism & Suicide Part 2
Dr. Steven Gutstein continues his examination of the link between autism and suicide in part 2 of his podcast.
Autism & Suicide
Why the suicide rate is higher for children and adults with an autism diagnosis and what we can do to help them.
Presuming Competence in Your Children with Autism
When we have high expectations for our children with autism it makes a huge difference. Believing in our kids will help them believe in themselves!
Helping Our Families Understand Autism
I believe that if we can balance the seriousness of the diagnosis with hope the extended family can become a wonderful support for the parents, but they have to understand what autism really means.
Adapting and Changing When Things Aren’t Working Part II
Welcome back to ASD: A New Perspective, the podcast show where we help you understand what is going on in the mind of your child, and we do encourage you that growth for your child is possible. I’m Kat Lee, and in this podcast, Dr. Gutstein continues his conversation with us about adapting and reminds us that it is so important for both parents and professionals to know of the value of adapting for our children.
RDI and Adapting: Changing When Things Aren’t Working
How do we help our children learn how to change when things aren’t working for them? Welcome to ASD: A New Perspective, RDIconnect’s own podcast show! In this month’s episode, Dr. Gutstein talks to us about the importance of adapting and how to help our kids with autism embrace change.
Schooling At Home
Do you want to home-school your kids but feel unprepared? Learn how to school your kids at home, especially when you may not know how.
Changing Our Mindset on Memory
Curious about how memory works? Learn from Dr. Gutstein about the importance of changing our mindset on memory and learning from experiences.
Coping with Crisis
We are all impacted in one way or another during this crisis and dealing with COVID-19 but what if we could use this opportunity with our family to overcome crisis in a uniquely RDI way?...
Just Noticeable Differences: A Key to Independence
Children with autism have a desire for everything to stay the same, but what if you could help your kids embrace and even look forward to change?
Static Thinking VS Dynamic Thinking
Static Thinking vs Dynamic Thinking When you live in a static thinking world, things either are either similar to one another or they are different. When you live in a dynamic thinking world things...
Transitioning to Adulthood: Part 2
With RDI® all of the simple and everyday experiences we enjoy with our children become huge in terms of their growth.
Redefining Autism
Dr. Steven Gutstein talks about how what we think we know about autism may not be true and gives a new definition to help us redefine autism.
Transitioning into Adulthood: Part 1
Do you have dreams for your child with autism? Dr. Rachelle Sheely talks about how we should never limit the dreams we have for our kids, autism or not, and how to help put them on a path to independence from a young age.
Learning from Experience
What we find is that through that more deliberative process of bookmarking, reviewing, constructing, saving, organizing…we also strengthen that encouragement to intuitively recognize something when we see it.
Do You Feel Left Out of Your Child’s Therapy?
In RDI, we really believe in parents and we also believe that there is a developmental structure inherent in the way children are raised worldwide. And that just because that’s difficult for parents who have a child on the spectrum, it doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
Foundations of Dynamic Intelligence
When the foundations of Dynamic Intelligence are set in place, the child begins to use their mind as a very powerful tool.
The Road to Independence
This idea of independence is one that we sometimes skirt because we get caught up in the daily routine of the things that we’re teaching or the things that we’re doing, or I think we get caught up in avoiding it because we worry about it so much. We’re afraid to face it.
Why Dynamic Intelligence Part 2
One of the critical roles of being a parent is to be a mind guide. We know that. And if you have a child with autism, you can’t do it until we help you to develop this and to help the child activate that growth, so you can begin to feel comfortable with it to start orienting more.
RDI®: Hope Around the World
One of the things at the Pan African Congress For Autism that impressed me and really didn’t surprise me was that parents and professionals alike had the same concern when they were thinking about the individuals that they deal with who were on the spectrum and their families.
Why Dynamic Intelligence: Part 1
Traditional static intelligence is necessary, but it’s not sufficient to function in our modern world, which is complex and dynamic in nature.
Your Family & Autism
I think the important thing for anybody who is either giving the diagnosis or working with a newly diagnosed family is to help parents know that there’s a beginning point, and that that beginning point is almost always the same
Theory of Mind: Part 2
We need to teach children to reflect and you know, that’s so much a part of our program to be able to bookmark something, maybe something that doesn’t work or maybe something that does work. We have a whole lot of work on that.
The Value of Self
Dr. Sheely discusses the value of parents in developing a child’s sense of self.
Theory of Mind: Part 1
Dr. Gutstein breaks down the complexities of Theory of Mind.
2019: A New Year in RDI®
Find hope in the new year with the RDI® remediation model.
The Future and Dynamic Intelligence
Dr. Gutstein talks research, dynamic intelligence and going into the future.
Overcompensating for our Children
Because your role has become the role of a compensator and not a guide, you start compensating for more and more things and sometimes children grow past the need for compensation.
Remediation
I haven’t found one paper written, and I’ve read everything, that talks about the potential for remediation of these areas: of neural remediation, of psychosocial remediation. Not one. It’s all about can we teach people other ways of functioning, or just neglecting it completely and not even thinking about it.
Time To Fly: Trusting Your Instincts with Your Child
They doubt their own inside voice and they doubt their own competence. They don’t doubt their competence with their other children, but autism is a wedge, it’s like a wedge with glue, and it drives families apart.
Gestures and Communication: Part 2
One of the things we do when we are forming experience representations are always doing enactments. We’re not using narrative words, we’re doing enactments.
HOPE: A Case Study
What I liked about the conversation was that these six things show a self-reflection, they show the hard work he’s done, they actually kind of document the guiding relationship he had with his parents.
Gestures and Communication: Part 1
When we’re using our body, we tend to use that part of the brain that manages experiences. Many people with Autism have been taught to use language as a task. As a performance-based measure. They wind up losing the sense of experience. The sense of flow with other people.
School and Your Child
The whole point of RDI is that we want our children to become independent in the way that they’re going to become independent is by learning to think and to use their brains in a way that they need to be used.
Main Obstacle for Parents
The main obstacle if you’re a parent is that your child is not coming to you with the excitement, the motivation to grow. But RDI can help.
Empowering the Family!
In RDI we believe there is a parallel process between the consultant and the parent, and the parent and the child… We’re giving them the tools so they can begin to think of their own objectives, they can come up with them.
