Why “resources” are never neutral
For speech-language pathologists, resources are rarely just tools. Every framework quietly teaches a theory of change: what matters, what gets measured, and what gets reinforced in the adult-child system.
From an RDI® lens, the non-negotiable question is not “Does this technique increase output?” The question is: Does this approach strengthen the guiding relationship and expand the learner’s capacity to engage with uncertainty, repair, and meaning? When that is the anchor, continuing education stops being a hunt for the newest protocol and becomes a coherent developmental plan.
Hanen: helpful foundations, with an important limitation
The Hanen programs have helped many clinicians and families refine interaction style, especially with typically developing late talkers. Parent responsiveness, pacing, and everyday routines can be enough to help language “catch up” when the child’s developmental system is fundamentally organized and simply delayed.
But a predictable limitation appears when the child’s learning system is not just delayed, but developmentally disorganized. One of the best-known Hanen principles is “follow the child’s lead.” In many families, that can degrade into “follow the child around,” especially when the child’s play is dominated by rigid stability-maintaining patterns (the “own agenda” problem clinicians recognize quickly). The result is often more effort, more prompting, and less genuine participation.
This is where the distinction matters: Guided Participation is not the same thing as following. Guided Participation is an active, intentional design of roles, pacing, and scaffolding so the child can enter shared activity and build competence from the inside. Hanen offers meaningful pieces of that for some profiles. For autism and significant social-communication barriers, many clinicians find it becomes a starting point, not a sufficient plan. The Hanen Centre’s catalog of workshops and e-seminars (including bilingual-focused training that many clinicians value) can still be a useful reference for specific skill-building, as long as the clinician holds the larger developmental frame.
When a method is popular, it may still not be distinctive
In some regions, Hanen is simply the default professional language. That matters strategically. If every clinic offers the same program, it may not differentiate practice, and it may not address the hardest cases.
A helpful professional exercise is to audit a method using three questions:
- What does the method assume about motivation?
- What does it treat as “success” in the room?
- What changes does it reliably produce in family life six months later?
If “success” is mostly compliance, scripted output, or adult-directed performance, the approach may be efficient in the short term and disappointing in the long arc of development.
Communicating Partners and interaction-based learning
Some clinicians resonate with James MacDonald’s Communicating Partners because it emphasizes pragmatic foundations of connection and interaction as the context for language. For professionals who want resources that keep communication embedded in relationship and activity, this can be a fruitful complement, particularly when used as a bridge toward more explicitly developmental, guided frameworks.
Fluency resources that align surprisingly well with an RDI worldview
Many SLPs have felt the tension: fluency work can drift into a “behavioral flavor” that leaves both clinician and family disheartened. Yet, there is a parallel stream within fluency education that is increasingly aligned with what RDI clinicians already value: attention, emotional regulation, self-compassion, mindful engagement, and meaning-making.
The Stuttering Foundation offers professional education that includes topics such as emotional and self-regulation in stuttering. And there is a growing clinical conversation about attention, CBT-informed work, and mindfulness as relevant mechanisms in therapy for stuttering, shifting the focus from “fix the speech” to “support the whole person’s capacity to communicate under challenge.”
From an RDI lens, fluency can be conceptualized as one possible barrier among many to quality of life and participation. That framing changes everything:
- The goal is not perfect fluency.
- The goal is agency in communication, even when speech is imperfect.
- The work becomes about approaching challenge without threat, staying connected, and building a personal history of “I can do hard things.”
This same frame also helps clinicians think carefully about preschool stuttering programs. The Lidcombe Program, for example, is widely described as a parent-delivered early stuttering intervention with a substantial evidence base in the fluency literature. The clinical question is not whether Lidcombe “works,” but whether it is being implemented in a way that protects the guiding relationship and the parent’s sense of competence. When the treatment process makes parents feel like they are failing, the relational cost becomes part of the clinical equation.
Autism plus disfluency: avoid a narrow target
Clinicians frequently observe that disfluency in autism can present differently than a classic developmental stutter, and may cluster with broader social-communication and regulation needs. In that situation, a narrow fluency target can accidentally pull time and attention away from higher-yield goals: experience sharing, nonverbal coordination, perspective-taking, and flexible communication. When communication becomes more meaningful and less threat-based, fluency sometimes improves indirectly because the system is calmer and more regulated.
Resources that address stuttering in the context of autism and related disabilities can help clinicians avoid treating all disfluency as the same phenomenon.
A note of caution on reflex integration and similar approaches
Some clinicians explore reflex integration approaches such as MNRI (Masgutova). When families ask about these methods, the most ethical response is not dismissal and not endorsement, but clinical literacy: what claims are being made, what outcomes are measured, and what quality of evidence exists.
Independent reviews and academic discussions often note that the evidence base for reflex integration approaches is limited or mixed, with concerns about methodological strength. If a clinician chooses to integrate elements, it should be done with transparent goals, careful measurement, and clear boundaries so that “doing more” does not replace “building development.”
Building a coherent professional learning plan
Different professional systems reward different kinds of learning. Speech Pathology Australia’s CPD model, for example, allows a broader range of professional activities to count toward annual requirements than the narrower CEU framework many U.S. clinicians navigate. ASHA’s certification maintenance requirements shape what “counts” for many clinicians in the U.S., which can create friction when the most meaningful training is not always packaged in CEU form.
A practical way forward is to build a “portfolio” of learning:
- One stream that satisfies the credentialing system
- One stream that deepens clinical craft in counseling, self-regulation, and relationship-based intervention
- One stream that strengthens developmental assessment and guiding
When those streams align, the clinician stops feeling pulled between compliance and competence.
Deepen the Guiding Lens: Professional RDI® Training for SLPs
For SLPs who want a developmental framework that clarifies why interaction strategies work, not just how to do them, professional RDI® training offers a structured pathway. It supports clinicians in designing guided participation, coaching parents without increasing pressure, and measuring growth in ways that reflect real-world adaptability and agency. To learn more about the professional training sequence and what it means to practice as an RDI® Consultant, explore the training options and consider whether this model fits the work being called for in the current caseload. Go here to sign up for Professional Training Information.
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