From Son-Rise to RDI

by | Jan 8, 2016 | Family Stories

This family story was written by an RDI parent

My journey since my child’s diagnosis has taken me along many paths and many agonizing moments.  Choosing how best to help and support my child was a struggle.  After a lot of research, I settled on two approaches – The Son-Rise Program and The RDI Program.  I wanted clear guidance on how they differed – but there just wasn’t enough clarity!  I had to take the plunge and find out for myself.  In case you are at the crossroads like I once was, here’s my experience.  I share my thoughts and reflections so that you can benefit from them. 

 First, I would like to tell you that I’ve attended the Son-Rise start up and the maximum impact trainings and I have been in direct contact with one of the top consultants in the Son-Rise program for a regular phone consultation and video feed back for 6 months.

 My Son-Rise Program Experience

The best advantage of the Son-Rise program is the opportunity for the parents to be involved and work with their child so that the bond between them will develop and grow. They are trying to focus on the social aspect of the relationship but they don’t provide the exact way to do that. It is all about being with your child in the Son-Rise specialized room with 3 or 4 goals to work on; with lots of joining, requesting and huge celebration.

They ask you first to join the child by doing exactly what he is doing, until s/he gives you the green light.  The Son-Rise green light refers to the moment the child looks at you. In an instant, you have to come up with a quick idea to share with the child and request something from him by asking a question or placing a demand. It is mentally exhausting! 

There is HUGE emphasis on eye contact. It is the first and the main fundamental of the Son-Rise Program.  You have to take every position to keep the child’s eyes fixed on yours!

They say: Don’t invade the child’s space…

I feel that continuously encouraging the child to look at you, following her/him around the room so that they will keep looking at you, invading and artificial! … And exhausting!!

Little tips, few ideas and a manual

Armed with little tips, few ideas and a manual after the training, you are supposed to work with your child 1:1 in the Son-Rise specialized room for a minimum of 20 hours per week!  That’s what they call Part Time Level 1 Son-Rise Program and the Full time is 56 hours per week!  I never felt satisfied during the Son-Rise Program because I couldn’t reach this 56 hours target.  

Over and above that, you have to look for volunteers and train them- then observe them while working with your child through the TV that is connected to a video camera inside the Son-Rise room! Also, it is mandatory to have a two hour meeting, every two weeks with the volunteers to discuss your child progress and where the volunteers need to improve.

I found it tough to concentrate with all that pressure on me.  I became overly focused on how to give my child more and more hours of therapy – and still I fell short!

Consider this: What happens to your family? Your other children? And, most important: How can your ASD child experience true family life being locked in a room for 6-8 hours/day away (even from siblings) because of possible overwhelm? And how would s/he learn anything about true life experience when they advise you to keep your child at home and you do not step out for months!

Isn’t it an artificial and fake environment?  I ended up feeling lost, hugely pressured and bored!

Related: The Road to Dynamic Thinking

 Language

Son-Rise will help your child develop the language if that is one of your main concerns, but it will be mindless –scripted speech.  You might not understand this point until you apply the RDI program with your child… you might even discover that the different songs your child sings every day is just scripting!!!

 The Son-Rise program fundamentals

The fundamentals and goals mainly concentrate on the problems that the child has because of autism and they don’t concentrate on autism itself.

The four fundamentals are:

  1. Eye Contact
  2. Language
  3. Interaction Attention Span
  4. Flexibility

Before I started the RDI program, I thought that there are lots of things in common between the Son-Rise and the RDI program – I could join them and apply them on my child. My RDI consultant suggested that we close the Son-Rise room for one week and give the RDI program a try. Since then, I haven’t opened it again!

 Why RDI?

The RDI Program provides the tools to individuals with ASD to have a quality of life and be independent.  It is logical and science-based.

What I now know

Typical children learn by observing their parents who are the experienced guides. They learn from struggling with uncertainty and challenges that are just a bit ahead of the current level of the child’s understanding.

By the beginning of the second year of life typically developing children start searching for meaning and the parent becomes the child’s primary reference point; This is called Guided Participation and this is how the child develops Dynamic Intelligence at first.

This type of relationship is either missing or severely impaired if the child has ASD (development does not follow the typical route). So the child may have problems with communication, language, thinking, understanding, etc.

The RDI Program concentrates on this Parent-Child Guided Participation. Their mission is to restore parents to their natural roles as the primary guides for their child. The RDI Program guides the parents to function in a simpler, slower and more mindful manner than had naturally been attempted earlier.

What’s missing?

I can’t point out things that are missing in the other programs and available in the RDI because I see that the RDI Program doesn’t belong to the same category that other programs fall in.  

All the programs, whatever the approach they take, focus on recognizing and treating co- occurring conditions and problems that happened as a consequence of autism.  RDI alone focuses on remediating the autism itself.

I remember during the Son-Rise training course they said that 30% of communication depends on language and that 70% depends on Non-verbal communication!!! This is absolutely true, but…going back to the Four Son-Rise fundamentals mentioned above… where is the 70% Non-Verbal communication!!!?

Also, in the Son-Rise Developmental Model that is attached to the Son-Rise manual…less than 30% of the goals concentrate on what they call “the Non-Verbal Communication”!!! This unfortunately, is mostly the static type of Non-verbal communication like nodding for yes/ No or waving etc. (which wouldn’t help your child if that was all he had)!

You then hope that your child will reach the final stage of non-verbal communication on the developmental model.  They call it: “Social referencing”. Here is how they define it: “In deciding which emotions and actions are appropriate in response to unfamiliar event, your child will take cues from the expressions & reactions of the other person”

And, if your child has reached that goal, Congratulations!!! Your child came out of autism!!! 

Reality check

  • Referencing, which is the final goal in Son-Rise, is among the first important and crucial things that the RDI Program works on?? 
  • The way that the Son-Rise program defined Referencing is very limited and deficient? And do you know that in the RDI program there are so many advanced fundamental stages to work on after referencing which the Son-Rise Program or even any other intervention program doesn’t mention at all?!
  • Non-verbal communication, which represents 70% of communication, depends on Dynamic Intelligence – which is what RDI is all about. The Son-Rise programs or even any other program doesn’t deal with it at all! Do you know that Dynamic intelligence is what truly differentiates children with Autism from typical children?

 “Dynamic intelligence is the ultimate product of our uniquely human minds. It is a gift that evolves throughout our life time. It allows us to adapt to an increasingly complex, continually changing world. Dynamic intelligence provides the tools to successfully solve complicated problems, prioritize multiple demands, carry on meaningful relationships and achieve long term goals. Jobs, friendship, marriages and most aspects of daily life are primarily dynamic in nature.”- DR.STEVEN GUTSTEIN

We are living in a world that is continually changing. For a child with ASD it is extremely overwhelming to deal with this Dynamic world. The Son-Rise program concentrates on Static intelligence, which was impaired because the ASD child didn’t develop the ability to build the Dynamic intelligence!!!

And guess what: with the Son-Rise program your child will develop the static intelligence so quickly, simply because it doesn’t require thinking!!!

Related: My Son is Thriving with RDI

How does the brain develop?

Do you know that the brain develops through thinking? And that the brain will not develop unless it is challenged and that “The brain learns best when it is trying to make sense? When it is building on what is already knows? When it is working in complex, situated circumstances? When it accepts the significance of what it is doing.? When it is exercising in highly challenging, but low threat environments.”?

Do you know that in the Son-Rise program they promise you that your child will reach a very high IQ level and maybe genius level. This is absolutely true and I assure you that as well. But that is true because IQ measures Static Intelligence. Researchers find that the majority (but not all) persons with ASD, retain intact and sometimes superior static functioning. People with ASD may or may not have deficits in static intelligence, yet they all have severe impairments in dynamic intelligence.

With the Son-Rise program you can teach your child so many things by redundancy. You can teach your child to play with others, deal with certain situations and react with people – after that, your child might act like a typical child. But do you think that the communication is going to be real? Do you think it is going to be true? Do you think s/he is going to experience the true joy of communication?

So what does RDI focus on?

In the RDI Program they don’t focus on language, they don’t focus on teaching the child how to play with peers etc. You don’t need a special room, it is more about an RDI life style and using the daily life opportunities.

The RDI Program focuses on restoring what was lost in the beginning (which is the parent-child guided participation) and then all the other problems will be solved without active work on each one- by the impact of your child’s developing dynamic intelligence.

Your child is going to experience the true connection with you. In everything he does, he will feel that it is true and you will feel that to. The child is going to perceive himself as voluntarily choosing to take an orienting action, rather than being requested or told to do so.

With RDI, the child will open up to the beauty of this life, and all the confusion that the child had before will start to fade away because simply – the child will understand how to make sense of everything.

 Impact of the RDI Program on you and your family

The beauty of  the RDI Program is that you will be a parent again for your child not a therapist! This is how the true relationship will develop.

In RDI, the most important thing for your child is being a part of a healthy family situation. Your child will be treated exactly like his/her typical siblings, with the same rules and limits and participating in the family daily routine. The only difference is that by mindful guiding your child to observe, process and think, s/he will understand and voluntarily choose an orienting action.

Quality of time that you spend with your child is more important than quantity…so you will feel relieved and you will have some peaceful time.

You will enjoy spending time and playing with your child and your other children because it will be true and not artificial like before.

 Simply… you will gain your true family life back!

Here is a summary …

The Son-Rise ProgramThe RDI Program
 

Focuses on treating the problems that occur due to autism

 

 

Focuses on remediating autism itself

 

Experience Based

 

 

Science Based

 

You need to travel to the Option institute for the course

 

 

You can start immediately with the closest RDI consultant to you

 

You are a therapist to your child

 

 

You are a parent to your child

 

You need a specialized rooms

 

 

Natural true environment

 

Quantity of time is important, the more hours the better

 

 

Quality of time is important, it is more about an RDI life style

 

You need a big team (parents and volunteers)

 

 

Depends on the parents

 

Artificial activities in artificial situation

 

 

True life experience and challenges

 

The child must be isolated  for months

 

 

Live the natural experience together with his siblings and parents

 

Monthly consultation at best.

In-between: you are own your own

 

 

Regular daily and weekly consultations and full supervision

 

 

Provide you with few tips and a manual

 

 

Provide you with an access to the one-of-its kind rdiconnect Learning Platform that contains lots of knowledge. Also a private personal account for you

 

Imbalanced family life, Totally concentrating on the sessions

 

 

Balanced family life

 

 

Expensive

 

 

Affordable

I feel that the Son-Rise program team are trying their best to help the children, and that all the parents who attended the program will learn how to love their children more, but allow me to tell what your child is going to miss; s/he is going to miss out on RDI – s/he is going to miss out the true life experience!

 RDI is a sophisticated program which can’t be discussed in brief, so I advise you to watch the RDI DVD and to read the RDI book to have a better idea about it. You could also go through some videos on their Youtube channel “rdiconnect”.

Today, I can say with total conviction: The RDI program is the future. I wish that every family with an ASD child could experience the joy of rediscovering their child and I’d like to leave you with this thought:

Do you want your child to “act” like a typical child, or want your child to think like a typical child?

Thank-you for taking the time to read this.

8 Comments

  1. juan fidel

    Hi I want to share my experience about SonRise Program. I’m from Colombia and I decide to do it ’cause I saw the improvements on my child since I started to apply a just few concepts of it. My son is a 5 year old child and it has 1 year on the program. At first when doctor says to us that he was autistic(age of 2 yo 10 m), we started doing ABA for a long year and seeing how or child kept closing more and growing in anger every day, but when we start to do SonRise ideas(on Internet-youtube and freeinfo in the site) without travelling to USA, we saw how it help us, just in three weeks he left the diapers,begin to work with us(thanks to kate wild and rauns books)and many other things. I couldn’t talk about RDI but could talk about Sonrise. I decide to comment here about SonRise program because I saw your knowledge about it could create a wrong perception of it. Its false that sonrise don’t try to focus into autism- Socialization skills opens the door to teach my son how to improve his every day life as talking and relate with others (peers, sister, neighbors and strangers)-. Experience based true, but that is because every program is tailored to every child, is not a “typical manual of do’s and don’ts this and you obtain that”. False you don’t need to travel to Option Institute to do the programs. I started to do the program SonRise as I understood in parallel with ABBA and I saw the differences and how sonrise has improving the life of my child(therapist asked my What was doing to my song that was improving in eye contact). I travel? yes Why? Because I was looking to speed up the results and It helps me a lot but as Samariha says “you don’t need to travel here, I did it alone with Raun, but you travel any way ’cause you want to see if this was real”. Specialized room- true, but is not restricted to this room, you could do it at the begging in every room of your house were you could focus you and your son without any distraction, when you have a room to focus and play yoyu have the opportunity to speed up and improve more that is your dog or your family is taking your time together .You are the therapist of you child Some people could call it like that, but the way of you show it is like it was bad because, first We are parents that loves our kids and motivate to our sons to improve its challenges every day and looking for the best strategy to teach them how to take a fork or put his clothes on. That was more than every advice that any ABA therapist gave to us. Isolated for months, false just for a few time(they say restrict unnecessary outs and). My child couldn’t go to a crewed Mall before We started sonrise, after doing the ideas of sonrise(many months before going to options)he starts to tolerate small reunions and now a year before, we could go to any mall or trip without any hesitate ’cause or child love to be with us. Montly consultations-false. I couldn’t afford that the year before ’cause I quit my job to help my kid(ABAs recommendations) I use just three consultations in that year. Our healtcare provider(thanks to the companny of where my wife works) allow us to have ABA therapy at any cost and they schedule us the best treatment possible, weekly psychology session for my, my wife and my two childs, three therapist 8 session by week neuro-pediatrist and the list goes(charging the company a calculated monthly bill of a USD$2000) with Sonrise you spend less thant that than and look results from begining with out training(at first I downloaded the free socialization model and watched the free videos on youtube, start to implement the program by my own ,then I bought 2 books online that is not more USD$100 or less, I observe more good results, after that I bought anothers more that cost me another hundred but is far less that ABA’s), you are for your own the most time-true;you have to develop your own program registering your progress and setting your son goals with the knowledge of your child, you have to use the scientific process of observe, hypotesis, try out, improve if your goal is not reach it. Big team-false- all improvements with my son were achieved until know with 3 people(a volunteer, my wife and I), I began to work again and the program goes well. Inballanced familly life, false, as I said I quit my job for recommendations of ABA’s therapists and or family starts to broke in pieces(even with our psychologist sessions) we were near to divorce but when we start to understand the Sonrise program and its ideas, the things started to go very well, even we are helping our elder daughter(neuro-typical child) to be more social with other and being happy again. Providing with a few tips-false-if you had assist to the startup and maximum impact and consultation process you have red the book of Kate Wild that are the basic tips for a every day challenge(useful in neuro-typicals to) artificial activities are called “games” in child language there are less artificial activities in this program than ABA’s. Every day I play with my son and try to introduce him new challenges to motivating him to see by himself what is capable to do.(other think that is useful with neuro-typical child). It’s true that all responsibility of developing your child is on you, as a leader of the program(if you really had attend to startup a maximum impact class you know what is). On our ABA’s days the therapist never gave us a single plan of development, just thing that “you aren’t doing”, we are having a plan now goal to reach and continuous improvement of that plan thanks to SonRise Program(the manual that you says).
    To end this comment, I want to say, I don’t want a robot, I want a kid Who plays with me and share its fellings with me, The Sonrise program(Samariha, Bear, Kate, Breyn, William, Raun, Camila, Kim and many other more)had achieved. An a short story of many of that our program has gave us–some day he brokes his favorite toy by accident, he ask me with concern “Daddy fix it” so I done it but it took me a time (4 days I think) that is natural he was worried but never ask me about the toy, when I show him it was fixed, he say an answer that we never teach him, he Says WOW dady fix zuma and jump to me and kiss me. That something of many things that following the Ideas of sonrise has gave us. Our son ride bike, play with his sister and his pets, know how to read and count as a 9 yo kid its his vegeteables(and if you aren’t worried yours to)tolerate parties with other kids, tolerate changes of schedule and the list goes

  2. Elizabeth Alford

    Juan, Thank you for taking the time to share your story. It is amazing the progress you have made with your son and exciting that you are now experiencing a better relationship with him. It is not our official opinion that there is something “wrong” with the Son-Rise program, this post is only the story of one person’s personal experience (like yours!). Good luck to you and your family on your journey!

  3. Joseph Grennell

    As a Child Psychologist who has trained in RDI, ABA and Son Rise I may be able to shed some light through a different perspective.
    Children with Autism are unique and trying to decide a clear diagnosis can be problematic.
    I can say I thoroughly enjoyed working with the children and I am grateful to the wonderful parents who do so much for their AED child it is very humbling.
    RDI was my preferred personal choice because it was the easiest and most efficient way to work with the children.
    ABA was more difficult because of the demands and isolation in the room.
    ABA discrete trail training is a favourite because it can be an add on” for specific learnings.
    Cost wise RDI is not as expensive as ABA or Son Rise. ABA 40 hours a week is very expensive.
    The results. I can honestly say all 3 approachs proved effective and I felt this was due to the sheer amount of 1 to 1 work with the children
    As a way of life RDI was the most sociable and socially interactive approache.
    Son Rise is very demanding on the family and far to labour intensive for the returns.
    ABA is great but far too expensive.
    All 3 approaches have their excellent outcomes but RDI is much nicer and more logical to run.
    Son Rise is over hyped and seductive and I have met lots of parents expecting miracle cures.
    ABA is a very effective therapy but who can afford it 40 hours a week for years.
    Train to become a Therapist yourself as it is cheaper than all the costs of getting someone else to do it for you.
    Well that is my simple take on this topic after 40 years practice with AED children.

  4. Lauren Conley

    Hi! I want to thank you for this post, and I hope you see this even though a long time has passed!

    I am an SLP who just attended the Son-Rise and absolutely loved it!! It added perfectly to my repertoire of skills and I was able to think critically about the recommendations. However, other parents in the room were sometimes overwhelmed and unsure of how to implement the entire program on their own. For someone without previous experience, hands on training and consults are highly recommended. I will be looking more into RDI; after reading your article I can already tell it will be a program I can stand behind!

    A few notes about Son-Rise;

    – they actually DONT want you to be looking at your child and trying to get artificial eye contact. Don’t follow them around. You need to join while giving space and really enjoying your solo activity while they are giving red lights.

    – it is not a one size fits all, although this may be misconstrued at the training! Some parents need to be told exactly what to do in order to get started, but the truth is if you were to consult with Son-Rise they may make suggestions that contradict what is said in class based on that child.

    – the playroom is an asset, not a 100% requirement. Honestly, the room works best for very low functioning kiddos who are: (throwing items, getting distracted by noises/visual stimuli, overly controlling, food crazed, chewing on everything, anxious, etc). The room allows the child to focus and the parents to create at least one space that is safe and where there are ** no control battles!!

    – you don’t need to have a whole team or required meetings. These are recommendations, although I agree SonRise may lay out the guilt tripping. My heart goes out to you and other parents who beat themselves up with unattainable tasks. However, just like ABA says 40 hour a week for best results, SonRise has a large number as well. I would say two hours in the morning and two in the afternoon should be just fine! Depends on the child.

    I would love to chat with you more Elizabeth if you have time!

  5. Rachelle Sheely

    Dear Lauren. Thank you for your comments. Dr. Sheely

  6. Rachelle Sheely

    Dear Joseph, Thnx for your comments Dr. Sheely

  7. Nilima Sarma

    My daughter is 6 years old she is non verbal she communicate sometimes by non verbal means she also uses some words too which have no meaning. Can RDI bring proper communication and speech to non verbal kids. We are facing lots of difficulties for her communication issues

  8. Rachelle Sheely

    Hi Nilima. Where do you live? Would you like to have a zoom conference to discuss your little girl?
    Dr. Sheely I will also email you

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