Customer Reviews
With reservations... 
2005-10-11
I have recommended this book for use with several children I work with, as well as the companion books with the actual excercises. I found them comprehensive and a good read, and was quite interested to find out what my "social skills" levels were (frequently under the age of one year, according to the tests provided in the back of the practical book on Adolescents and Adults).
I am Aspergers or HFA, depending upon whom you ask (significant language delay, but not diagnosed until an adult). But having worked with a couple of RDI consultants, and having read the books... I am NOT comfortable with the therapy for myself.
Quite frankly, I don't want to socialize that much, and not being good at it works as well as any other reason to not do so. And if neurotypicals are as terribly good and flexible at adjusting to the levels of the person they are socializing with as they like to claim, then they can bloody well do so for a change. I feel no need to change who I am, or how I act, simply to fit the prejudices of others.
Yes, I know it would make life that much easier. But as I recently told a DAN/CAN type at a local ASA conference, I would like a "cure" for my autism about as much as he would like a "cure" for his personality.
Building Blocks to Socialization 
2004-12-16
Hats off to Dr. Gutstein for his focus on socialization in individuals with autism and Asperger's Syndrome. His "carrot minus the stick" approach in helping people on the autism spectrum perceive benefits in social interaction is an invaluable insight. I like the way he concentrates on building strengths and providing explanations for more severe autism-spectrum behaviors.
He uses what appears to me a very reasonable approach. For many people with autism, sequencing or breaking tasks and interactions down into process-friendly steps has proven helpful. He also explains how people by nature crave socialization and that people on the autism spectrum do not have the intuitive social knowledge, such as how long and when to maintain eye contact. To his credit, he does not lapse into a tired "Rain Man" stereotype; instead, he focuses on how to encourage people with autism to develop nonverbal as well as other interpersonal social skills. In just about every case, people with autism learn these behaviors cognitively and often by repeated efforts.
This book certainly deserves a place of honor among professionals and families. It is for everybody.
Dense book in search of an editor 2004-08-15
Gutstein's premise -- that people on the spectrum need to learn emotional sharing -- is quite a different approach from the standard therapies. Most therapies work on functional skills, whereas Gutstein works on functional motivation. The two go hand-in-hand, and that's where his book has value. However, it's not a very readable book, and it needs extensive editing to be accessible to its preferred audience of parents and therapists. Look instead for one of his two follow-up books, which give an overview of RDI and also provide specific exercises.
From a Mom - This Works! 2002-03-26
I am mom to a quite adorable 4 year-old with Asperger/Autism/HFA....every year a different label..but by any other name, he's still as sweet. I wanted to pour out all the help I could give him. I devoured hosts of books on all the labels. Every book was an eye-opening, informative, helpful tool along our journey, but Dr. Gutsteins book was the journey itself! The journey my son must embark on to be a participant in the human relational experience and not just an observer. To loose himself in the shared giggles of a pal. To be stirred inside by a knowing smile or glance. To embrace the wonderment, spontaneity and magic of play. To see himself through the eyes of others. To walk in step with a friend. This is what my son was missing. It is elusive, hard to grasp or put into words. I knew my son needed something yet to be addressed by any of the books I had read or professionals I had consulted. It was as if Dr. Gutsteins book quenched an aching thirst. The book is a practical treatment approach called RDI. Do not be misled by the simplicity of the treatment methods. The "games" are simple, but powerful! Do not skim the book or skip through the chapters, read it, read it again. ...After reading the book, my son became a patient at the Connections Center. The RDI treatment has already unlocked a door to a lifetime of relational joy for my son. He has come so far in an amazingly short time. We will continue our journey and I hope many others will discover their journey as well.
Solving the relationship puzzle 2001-12-29
Gutstein's book has far reaching social value beyond that of Autism. I think of his work RDI as soul building, something our society desperately needs. Gutstein takes apart the developmental elements of social/personal connection without losing the sense of mystery that there is in relationships. ie. He analyses the kiss without reducing it to a technicality. Although steps are given once you have grasped the content of the book there is room for the individuals creativity and intuition to take the material and run with it.
I feel strongly that this book should be required reading for all psych, forensic and Social work students as it goes to the core of our ability to relate to other individuals and society.
MOVING THE CHILD FROM RETREAT TO ENGAGEMENT 2007-10-14
RDI enables the child to move from the self-imposed safety of a static system of his/her own making to engagement in the fluid world at large. The steps are based on the developmental stages of a normal childs venturing into world while he/she looks to the caregiver for support and referencing. The child on the autism spectrum ventures out until the world becomes confusing and chaotic and because he/she does not look back at the caregiver for a broadening understanding becomes overwhelmed and retreats into stimms or idiosyncratic habits to create a static, safe or predicatable environment. The child looks odd as he/she is not engaged in the fluidity life. The words static and fluid or big with RDI as the idea is the child is constantly controlling his/her environment to block out anything which might change the order they seek. The step by step process of RDI is a very optimistic idea in action as it can be used with a 2 year old or an older more entrenched Aspergers child with defined obsessions for example - basically it doesn't matter the treatment begins with breaking into the child's stimm or obsessions in a playful fashion to make them used to the interruptions of their solo activities. This is pretreatment then the program moves through levels based on developmental stages. Level 1 for example is about co-ordination and self referencing with the care giver and the child is never allowed to move forward without the caregiver right there step by step - this is a back and forth relationship play level, based on facial gazing for information - infact avoiding language at this stage is very important as the child should learn to read anothers face at this point the caregiver says "I need to see your words" - once the child has mastered back and forth - gaze reading and shared joint attention it progresses to shared novel interactions that involve spontanity, a higher level of emotional attunement and fluidity. The goal is for the child to become an initiator and to become adept at keeping co-ordination when actions and reactions grow more complicated. I believe this program is a neccessary component to any intensive program with developmentally disabled children as ABA only goes so far - ABA is great at working with these kids excellent memories to teach rote skills - but it does not provide for the rich experience of life which can not be predicted and which gives life meaning. Lynn Koegal at UCSB discovered looking back over her 20 years of videos that the kids who really mainstreamed indistinguishable from typical peers and became independent adults had self-initiation skills and this is the ultimate outcome of RDI. That they learn through referencing the other, where the self is in the relationship, and the payoff is equally enjoying what they can add or initiate in relationships.
A critical piece, but not the only piece of the puzzle. 2007-08-27
I was given this book by another parent whose son has autism, and my son has a preliminary diagnosis of PDD-NOS. While I do agree that an important part of the missing piece for specturm children has to do with their inability to read and respond to the emotional and social cues of their peers, I have my doubts as to whether or not that certain "piece" is the most critical and primary component of autism that needs to be adressed first and primarily in order to begin the process of recovery. Frankly, I am dubious of any therapy that requires parents to spend $3,000 on a four day seminar before they can purchase more therapy, which will likely have to be paid for out of pocket. I find that the RDI's official websites use of guilt and fear in goading parents out of their precious resources is not only irresponsible, but generally reprehensable as well. When I hear something like recovery, or hope for you child's fullest potential, initially comes with a three-thousand dollar cash outlay plus the cost of travel and hotel accomodations, so that someone can tell me over the course of four days, that my son has a deficit when it comes to socialization, I immediately become suspicious. Buyer's beware I say: when therapists have our children's best interest at heart, they never use guilt or fear to get parents into their offices so that treatment and help can begin to lighten the already heavy load of caring for a child with autisim spectrum disorders.
Do the program, ignore the propaganda 2006-09-18
If you're a parent looking into treatment options, then I most definitely recommend RDI as a part of your treatment program. It's focuses on many of the very important skills that are not well addressed through other approaches - things like socialization, forming and maintaining relationships, abstract language/thought, and creativity. Let me make this clear: the approach - I love! I think it's much-needed, well-researched, and great! Some of the PR surrounding the approach, however, I do not.
Unfortunately RDI falls into the "Just use us, we want to be the only game in town!" mentality that so many treatment approaches do. If you explore RDI further (i.e., decide to do a conference or consultation after reading this book), you may be told that:
- ABA programs make children "more autistic", even though they appear to be getting better this is only a short term illusion, underneath it all they are being taught to think in a more black-and-white 'autistic' way.
- Language fundamentals (i.e., basic vocabulary, following directions, speaking in sentences using correct grammar) are not a core defecit of autism despite the fact that they are listed as part of the diagnostic criteria, and so they are not targeted. The child will 'get' all of this language by doing RDI, however, even though it's not specifically addressed.
- The child's age when they begin treatment isn't important, the birth to five time frame for early intervention is arbitrary. Also, intensity of treatment isn't important, quality of treatment is (again, this is said as 'fact' despite the fact that it is not supported and seems to be contradicted by research)
This is some of the information that was presented when I went to an RDI conference and checked out their website, from Dr. Gutstein himself. So I recommend this program to parents with a warning - keep your common sense. Do not fire your speech therapist or your verbal behavior consultant if you're happy with these programs and you think they are working. I like RDI a lot, I think it's a great program and very beneficial to the child, but some of the information they are passing along to parents as 'fact' seem more like their own theories that do not appear to be consistently supported by research.
Bottom line - there is no one 'right' approach for any child! Some kids will need to sit down and drill on vocabulary words over and over in order to develop a functional vocabulary. Yet this would be silly and pointless for some other children. Some kids will benefit from behavioral, sensory, or other techniques as part of a combined program, some won't. Why this fact is so rarely recognized by the 'heads' of these various therapies is beyond me.
A nice component, might not be a comprehensive treatment approach 
2006-08-28
For those of you who like to skim, my 'nutshell' review of RDI: It's a great program for social skills, abstract thought, joint attention, and other skills that are not well addressed in common behavioral approaches. It may not, however, be a complete program for all autistic children. Now for the wordy version...
The negatives of RDI are, in my opinion, not within the program itself but in what this program claims to do. RDI wants to be a core treatment approach for remediating autism, but to achieve this by targeting only the 'core' deficits of autism. If you take a look at the most common autism remediation approaches (currently, these are mostly ABA based) you'll see that they contain instruction for language, fine and gross motor skills, self help skills, reading, visual processing...the list goes on. RDI ONLY targets what it considers to be the 'core' deficits in autism, things such as perspective taking, ability to cope with and pay attention to new and rapidly changing stimuli, or mental creativity/flexibility.
This is good stuff, but the program seems to operate on the premise that the other skills will just fall into place if you target the 'core' skills, or that if the child has other issues (i.e., receptive language or reading delays) that these are not 'really' autism, they are a co-existing condition that the child has in ADDITION to the autism and I guess you find another program to target them. A good example to highlight this is language...RDI says that since 85% of autistic children develop language on their own, this is not a true core deficit in autism. Personally, I could not disagree more. True, some language may develop, but that does not mean it matures to a level commensurate with the child's intelligence. Difficulties with 'concept' words, complex sentence structure, narrative formation, verbal reasoning and auditory processing remain present in many autistic children.
Another question I have about 'core' skills - and I'm about to get all abstract here, so bear with me - I don't know how it's possible to distinguish between 'core' skills and 'highest level' skills. RDI looks at problems that every child on the spectrum has - be they high functioning Aspergers Syndrome or severely autistic. It says that since these problems are found in all autistic children, no matter how mild the case, that this must be 'true' autism. Issues not found in ALL children on the spectrum are just associated issues but not 'true' autism.
Ok but...what if we used the same logic in saying "Some people with cerebral palsy can't walk, but some can. So not being able to walk isn't 'really' a part of their cerebral palsy" or "Some people with dyslexia can read long novels and some can't, so.." You get the idea. I'm not saying I totally disagree with the idea of core skills. I am saying it's very hard to distinguish between a core skill and the 'highest level' of skill - i.e., if you had mastered all skills up to that level you would no longer be considered autistic, however, skills below that level are still very much a part of autism. My fear is that this approach causes some important skills to be ignored because they do not fit the definition of 'core' skills.
After that little rant, let me say that I actually do like RDI a great deal. There are some things that cannot be taught in drill form, and conversation, reciprocity, and social language are among them. You can sit a child down at a table and teach them adjectives. You cannot sit a child down at a table and teach them how to share their joy and opinions, how to make observations about the world around them, how to want to interact (and I mean truley interact for interactions sake, not play along so long as the activity is somehow inherently rewarding to them). RDI has lists and lists of objectives that focus on a level of abstract thought and cognitive skills that are often barely touched on in ABA programs. It fills in a very prominent 'missing piece' from many other programs.
Another very, very important component of RDI is the development of joint attention, which some research suggests is one of the most important factors in a child's prognosis and yet is extremely difficult to work on in a practical way. RDI does a wonderful job of working on this and I think this alone probably makes a huge difference for many kids.
My bottom line: I would use this for a child I thought had advanced beyond ABA, or as a part of another, more comprehensive (not necessarily ABA, but a teaching-based) program for a child who still had language, academic, or motor needs.
Finally!! 2006-06-03
Its about time that a book was written that focuses on the motivation of kids with autism. Further, this therapy addresses one of the key defecits of kids with autism: social skills. Defintely a breath of fresh air for those tired of the rote, ungeneralizable, and BORING appraches of ABA.
