RDIconnect® Blog
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The Guiding Relationship: Moving From Managing to Co-Regulating
This article explains what co-regulation looks like in real life when an autistic child is upset and how parent-led, developmental guidance can turn difficult moments into opportunities for connection and resilience.
IEP Goals through an RDI® Lens
Move beyond product-only targets. Write dyadic, process-based IEP goals that use co-regulation, scaffolded supports, dynamic assessment, and fading to build real agency.
Growing Episodic Memory: Helping Children Build “What Happened To Me” Stories
Learn how RDI® helps autistic children build episodic memory and autobiographical “what happened to me” stories, so they can reflect on experience, plan ahead, and face new situations with more confidence.
Starting Where Regulation Lives
First, find your footing Regulation comes before skills. I return to this every day with families and with professionals. We bring plans and good materials. We script the steps. Yet if a child is...
Reading What Isn’t Said: A Developmental Approach to Nonverbal Communication in Autism Practice
Professionals often tell me they can coach vocabulary, grammar, and even the mechanics of turn-taking, yet their clients still miss the moment. The lesson lands, but the meaning does not. That gap...
Overview of the RDI® Program: Time Commitment, Progress, and Family Fit
Learn what to expect from the RDI® program: time commitment, progress timeline, and how to know if it’s the right fit for your autistic child and family.
How to Support Your Autistic Child Without Relying on Compliance-Based Parenting
A developmental, relationship-centered guide for parents to replace compliance with Dynamic Intelligence and the Guiding Relationship for lasting growth.
Do I need to work with an RDI® consultant, or can I implement the program on my own?
Considering RDI® at home? See why starting with a certified RDI® consultant protects your relationship, sets the pace, and helps you become your child’s guide.
Autistic vs. Non-Autistic Communication Styles: How to Bridge the Gap
Professionals often tell me, “I know my client is autistic, but it still feels like we are speaking different languages.” Speech-language pathologists, teachers, counselors, and therapists are...
Preparing Autistic Teens for Dating and Consent: An RDI® Guide for Parents
Learn how to guide autistic teens through dating and consent with RDI® principles. Practical tools, safety tips, and developmental strategies for parents.
How Does the Parent-Led Intervention Model Work?
Why Parent-Led Intervention? I remember a mother once telling me, with no small amount of exhaustion in her voice, “I’ve spent the last year driving my son to therapy five days a week. They said it...
RDI® for Autistic Adults: Building Confidence, Connection, and a Path Forward
Discover how RDI® helps autistic adults build confidence, flexibility, and emotional resilience. Learn how this developmental approach supports real-life growth, no matter your age or stage.
How to Deal with Executive Dysfunction as an Autistic Adult
Many autistic adults struggle with executive dysfunction, especially when living alone. We discuss how to deal with executive dysfunction in your day-to-day.
Understanding ‘Challenging’ Behavior Through a Developmental Lens
Discover how RDI® approaches “challenging behavior” in autism as meaningful communication, not something to fix. Learn how relationship, co-regulation, and emotional development offer lasting support for autistic individuals and their families.
How RDI® Supports Relationship-Building and Social Development
RDI® helps autistic individuals build meaningful social connections by developing core skills like flexible thinking, emotional regulation, and joint attention.
Understanding Your Child’s Sensory Needs: A Guide for Newly-Diagnosed Families
Unsure how to manage your child’s sensory processing needs? Understand their challenges better so you can react to them in an informed, compassionate way.
How to Recognize and Support Autistic Burnout Symptoms in Children and Teens
Can you spot autistic burnout symptoms, or distinguish autistic burnout vs depression in clients or students? These tips can help.
Can I Still Communicate with My Nonspeaking Child?
Nonspeaking autism can feel extra scary for parents. They fear they'll struggle to create a deep bond with their child, or that they'll overlook crucial cues about their child's emotions. But the...
Does Scientific Research Support Relationship Development Intervention?
More professionals are turning to Relationship Development Intervention (RDI®) as an alternative to traditional therapies for individuals living with autism – and with good reason. Unlike other...
What Causes Autistic Regression and What You Can Do to Help
If a child seems to be losing skills they’ve already developed, they could be experiencing autistic regression. We’ll explain why this occurs and how to help.
Is Relationship Development Intervention (RDI®) a Behavioral Therapy?
When you first hear about relationship development intervention (RDI®), you might come across outdated or confusing sources labeling it as a behavioral therapy. A quick Google search might suggest...
What Training Is Available for Professionals Who Want to Become RDI® Consultants?
Thinking about becoming an RDI consultant? Find out everything you need to know about earning your RDI® qualification – make an impact in the lives of autistic individuals and their families.
Resources for Therapists Working With Autistic Children
If you’re a therapist, social worker or another specialist who works with children, you will eventually find yourself working with a child on the autism spectrum. If you lack experience with autism, it can be intimidating, and you may not be sure of what to expect or how to be effective. Even when you are eager to learn, the latest scientific knowledge and best practices are not always easy to access or understand, leaving you to rely on common stereotypes or old, cliched models.
Autism and Parenting Online Course
Whether your child was recently diagnosed or your family has been living with autism for some time now, you know that parenting a child with autism can come with unique stresses and challenges. Maybe you’ve tried different approaches to parenting without much success. If you’ve found it difficult to teach or discipline your child or share what should be joyful moments with them, you might feel like giving up on having the parent-child relationship you’ve always wanted – but there is hope. Learn more about what RDI® can do for your family with this online course for parents of children with autism.
5 Practical Implementations of RDI® in Your Life as an Adult To Help You at Work, at School or Socially
Autism doesn’t go away when you grow up. Improve your quality of life and relationships, achieve your goals and live the life you want to live with RDI®.
Autism and Bullying – Helping Your Kid Cope
Studies have found that children and teens with autism are more likely to be bullied than their typically developing peers. Over 60% of children, teens and young adults with autism experience bullying. Among them, high schoolers are more likely to be bullied. If the rate of bullying among autistic individuals is so high, you might be wondering: Why isn’t more being done about it? To start with, a lot of parents don’t know that their child is being bullied.
Choosing an Advanced Autism Certification
If you’re an autism professional or aspiring autism professional, you might be considering an advanced autism certification. An advanced certification can help you to accelerate your career growth, but there are so many choices available; how do you know which certification is the right one for you?
Parent Involvement in Autism Treatment Models
If you’re a speech language pathologist, occupational therapist or other professional who works with children, there can sometimes be barriers to helping your clients meet their goals. One is a lack of parent involvement.
How Autisic Adults Can Build Self-Esteem Through Self-Acceptance
We’re taught from a young age that high self-esteem is something to be desired and attained, but self-esteem isn’t all we need. Although it’s not talked about nearly as much, self-acceptance is much more important when it comes to good mental health and overall happiness.
Removing Behavior from the Equation and Focusing on Relationship in Autism Remediation
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What Makes an Autism Intervention “Effective”?
Our understanding of autism spectrum disorder and how to approach it has changed tremendously over the years. We now know that people who have neurodevelopmental differences like autism simply think and function a little differently than the rest of the population.
Using RDI® To Address Behavior Issues in the Classroom
In this video, I discuss a case study about using RDI® to address behavior issues at school. I’ve been working with this particular family for about 17 years, so I’m very familiar with the child and his history. Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to observe the student in the classroom several times, either in-person or through video review or a live Zoom feed. In one instance, I was asked to observe some video taken in the classroom to look for a potential bullying situation.
Anxiety and Young Children: How To Help Them Cope
We all experience anxiety sometimes. Long ago, when resources were more scarce and we lived more dangerous lives, anxiety helped us to recognize threats like predators. Even today, it can help us in certain situations. Children can also experience anxiety and, just like with adults, if it isn’t managed, anxiety can make day-to-day life less enjoyable and more difficult.
Can a Public School Deny Access to My Child With Higher Support Needs?
By law, children with support needs have the right to school services. If your child is denied access or you’re dealing with roadblocks, you should take the necessary steps to make sure they receive appropriate services. This process can be intimidating, but it’s part of advocating for your child and ensuring that they receive the education and other services they’re entitled to.
Non-ABA SLP Techniques To Implement With an Autistic Client
While speech is a very helpful skill to have, it’s not the be-all and end-all of communication. It’s better for someone to be nonverbal and truly communicate with others through other methods, rather than being able to speak, but not able to participate in reciprocal communication.
Transforming the Well-being of Persons with Autism
“Transforming the Well-being of Persons with Autism,” a research paper written by RDIconnect co-founders Dr. Steven Gutstein and Dr. Rachelle Sheely, was recently published in “Psychoanalytic...
How to Help Our Autistic Children Identify Emotions
As adults, we typically identify and process our emotions and those of others automatically. It can feel effortless to us, but this is an important skill that autistic people can have difficulty with. There is hope. As a parent guide, you can help your child gain awareness of emotions, which will help them successfully navigate many aspects of their life.
Treating Language Delays or Disorders in Autistic Children
We believe that using RDI® as the foundation for the treatment of autistic language delays and disorders in your practice encourages growth and forward motion and in the child. In the RDIconnect podcast episode, “RDI and Non-Verbal Children,” a discussion between Kat Lee and Dr. Rachelle Sheely illustrates how our model approaches communication first, and how other treatments miss that important factor.
How To Keep Your Older Child or Teen Safe Online
Many of us enjoy the benefits of being online. We connect with people from all over the world, we pursue our interests, we are entertained, and we can learn about any topic that we are interested in. Our autistic children and teens benefit as we do from the online world; however, our youngsters can be more vulnerable to cyber threats such as predators, pornography, and bullying if they do not understand the dangers, and if they do not establish and use internet safety skills.
Adults and Teens: How to Deal with the Anxiety that Comes with Change
Many of us experience difficulties when dealing with change in life. But if you are an autistic adult or teen, you may find yourself particularly subject to anxiety with the big life shifts that you face, such as starting high school, college, switching jobs, moving out on your own, and the inevitable changes that happen with relationships. Is there any way to help with this?
RDI® – More Than Just Autism
The following article was re-posted with permission from SAIconnection's blog and was written by RDI® Certified Consultant Kamini Lakhani. Many parents ask if RDI is only for autistic individuals....
Autism and Puberty: Do Sensory Challenges Make It Harder?
Puberty can be daunting for any young person. Puberty wafts into a teen’s or pre-teen’s life with physical changes, as well as changes that are unseen, such as increased cortisol levels that often lead to shifts in emotions and struggles with behavior regulation. An adolescent can switch from having a happy and low-stress day to crying within minutes. These changes can be even more difficult for autistic young people who typically deal with sensory challenges.
Autism, Eating and Food – Why Are There So Many Issues?
An autistic individual can experience eating or food challenges at any age, but studies indicate that even though eating difficulties can and do carry over into adulthood, they typically improve. A compilation of studies published by Science Direct, authored by Susan D. Mayes, Ph.D., and Hana Zickgraf, Ph.D., report that atypical eating behaviors are significantly more common in autism (70.4%) compared to children with other disorders (13.1%), and neurotypical children (4.8%).
The Harm in Infantilizing Autism
Providing support for our autistic teen or adult is a necessary part of being a parent, and this is often one of our top concerns. But as we do so, we can unknowingly fall into a default mechanism that infantilizes the individual and treats them as if they are not capable of being their own person. We typically do this with the underlying belief that we are giving the best support, and that we have our teen or adult’s best interests in mind, however, infantilizing them is unnecessary, and innately dangerous.
Autism and Higher Education
How can RDI® provide real-world support for your child, teen, or young adult to prepare them for higher education, or a real-world job? In Dr. Steven Gutstein’s words, “Dynamic Intelligence is the mental ability that enables humans to successfully navigate the world and our relationships….and we have developed many resources to meet the mental challenges encountered in dynamic environments.”