Re: R.D.I - any thoughts?

[Guest guest]

D Tucker wrote:

> i cannot 'connect' with a lot of eye contact. its disturbing because i

> don't listen as fully w/ eye contact. even those straight on commercials

> on tv bother me and i mute the tv or look away-where the person looks

> right at u (seems to)

> kim

>

Ask yourself what it is about eye contact. Is it possible that rather

than not connecting it is the opposite. For many of us, certainly for me

it is that eye contact feels threatening, it is too intense. I have a

hard time connecting on such a personal level.

Because of the intensity it takes the focus away from listening for

some. Think about it for a moment. When do children look away? When they

feel guilty, when they know they have done something wrong. The reason

for the importance in eye contact, especially in the presence of someone

of authority is that avoidance of eye contact is often a sure sign of

guilt. I know that for me that guilt is often the real culprit. I feel

guilty around people of authority even when there is no reason for it.

Because we can not live separate from the NT world it makes sense to

practice eye contact as much as possible. While it may not appear to

have an influence you can bet that in almost every job interview it does

make a difference. What makes the most sense? you are there to get

hired, not rejected, at least I would hope so. Avoid eye contact for a

strike against you or having practiced it use it as a point in your

favor. Learning how to live in an NT world is not about being cured or

healed it's all about making life easier for ourselves.

Sometimes that means gentle pushes and at times it may mean intensive

therapy. How important is it to learn to connect and or communicate?

[Guest guest]

> Because of the intensity it takes the focus away from listening for

> some. Think about it for a moment. When do children look away? When they

> feel guilty, when they know they have done something wrong. The reason

> for the importance in eye contact, especially in the presence of someone

> of authority is that avoidance of eye contact is often a sure sign of

> guilt. I know that for me that guilt is often the real culprit. I feel

> guilty around people of authority even when there is no reason for it.

I've not had this experience and I do not make eye contact. I've had

plenty of job interviews too. I think you are assuming NTs are too dumb

to realize that a qualified candidate may not have perfectly normal NT body

language. Some may - but will making eye contact really be enough when

surely there is some part of body language you forgot to make look NTish?

> Because we can not live separate from the NT world it makes sense to

> practice eye contact as much as possible. While it may not appear to

> have an influence you can bet that in almost every job interview it does

> make a difference. What makes the most sense? you are there to get

> hired, not rejected, at least I would hope so. Avoid eye contact for a

> strike against you or having practiced it use it as a point in your

> favor. Learning how to live in an NT world is not about being cured or

> healed it's all about making life easier for ourselves.

I've learned how to live in the world - to make life easier on myself, I

*don't* make eye contact. The supposed benefits you cite don't exist for

me in my experience.

--

[Guest guest]

I would agree with you about it not being a recipe book. I got

deeper into it today, at the stage 1 and really at this level, it does

what we know is effective and appropriate in initiating play with a

profoundly autistic child. It is actually the same sort of thing as

nt parents do instinctively with their very young nt children.

.. join in and have fun with echolalia

.. use a variety of strategies to indicate key words eg repeat the

word, say the key word a little louder, stutter it etc

.. enunciate words very distinctly

.. use wait time appropriate to that child.

.. use the child's interests and favourite activities

there is nothing new in that, except that some therapies would be

disgusted that the social partner was participating in stimming or

echolalic behavour.

Today i modelled those strategies for a teacher aide and she was

stunned to see him taking the lead in initiating a game around his

favourite classroom stim. I have often seen him try to initiate

interaction but people don't realize what he is doing. he clicked on

graphics and then he was copying words exactly as a character in the

game says them. after a few minutes I started imitating the words and

he just clicked to direct me. i often play that with him. After a

while i asked for a turn, so he stood up and let me sit in his chair,

which i found out today, he does not permit anyone to sit in. I often

have. I clicked on the graphics for him to say. usually i prompt,

but today i just kept clicking the same sequence, and when he suddenly

got the words out, I gave him a turn. we swapped chairs again. He

loved it and played for 45 minutes. His responses were quicker and

quicker. There was genuine laughter and fun, and he made fleeting eye

contact each time we swapped chairs. This is so far from the awful

drilling of play skills that they do for ABA. I showed some of the

children in his class the game and I will do that with all our

activities so they can have ways to join him on his terms.

> I'm not sure what you mean by RDI being a " recipe " book approach.

> It has got a definite structure in terms of it being based on

> developmental levels and going in a step-by-step fashion, but it is

> also heavily based on referencing the individual on the spectrum and

> seeing what brings them trust, joy, pleasure, excitement, competence

> and confidence, etc. It is not a behavioral approach designed for

the

> comfort of NTs, but an emotion-sharing and cognitive approach

> designed for learning in safety and comfort, for the purpose of

> increasing the quality of life for those on the spectrum.

> It is lead by parents, not therapists and is very individualized.

> I think it demands a very high level of creativity and referencing

> ability from the parents.

>

> (BTW, any " recipe book " approach that tells me as a first step to

> start avoiding aversive social experiences and then, to reference

> others as little as possible, has enough flexibility and

> customization

> for me!)

>

> If by " recipe book " you are referring to the two books of RDI

> " activities " you might suggest your friend look into the latest

> information about RDI, where Dr Gustein continually makes the

> point that the " activities " are the least important part of the

whole

> program. Rather, he suggests parents use the books to get ideas

> if they want .. in my own case, he told me he doesn't care if I EVER

> do any activities " out of the book. "

>

> I hope this helps clarifies things a little who are unfamiliar with

> RDI. Dr Gutstein told me once that he didn't want to be like

> some other professionals who treat people on the spectrum

> without knowing anything about them. He really tries hard to

> understand us and I think he deserves a lot of credit for that.

>

> Incidentally, he's said about families who have gone from

> ABA to RDI .. that those children " feel like they've died and gone

to

> heaven " . There's an interesting post on the RDI discussion board

> ( " RDI vrs ABA " ) from a therapist who did ABA for 17 years, who only

> does RDI now. (AND he had personally worked with Lovaas.)

>

> Marria

>

> >RDI, imho is yet another " recipe " book

> > approach and this is backed up by a friend who has worked with

those

> > with autism for the past 28 years.

[Guest guest]

ok i know what you are talking about re jim. i have done the no

response thing too, when being bitten. lol dissociation is a bit of an

advantage on this. I would agree with what he does with exception to

compliance over the one activity. i have a deep aversion to training

for compliance. I would present two favoured activities, and stay

with it until the child had chosen one. it seems a small difference,

but it is about giving the child some control. lots of people insiste

that you cannot give these children a choice because th ey are

incapable of choosing when angry. i disagree. it does take longer,

and i might have a few more bruises initially, but in the long run,

there is a payoff when the child self selects something which was not

offered and calms.

> > i am autistic and a teacher and i would never inflict intense

> > behavioural approaches on any child. if we used those intensive

> > approaches on nt children, we would be prosecuted for child abuse.

> > ABA infringes upon the rights of the child.

> >

> > it sickens me that lovaas and his therapists cannot be charged

with

> > child abuse because their therapies were acceptable practice for

> > disabled people at the time when they used electric shock

aversives

> > etc.

> >

> >

> >

> >Hi " gprobs " ,

>

> I'm sorry for any misunderstanding here. Believe me, I am just as

> anti Lovaas and his punishments for undesirable behaviours as I

> imagine all autistic people are. I have spoken out against the

> notorious Lovaas method and received support for my views.

>

> When I say, I have no problem with intensive behavioural

> interventions, i.e. the behaviour method, and not the misuse of this

> method, I need to give you some clear examples and guidelines

perhaps

> so you feel more at ease with where I'm coming from.

>

> It is actually a fellow autistic who cleared this same

> misunderstanding up for me some time ago when I challenged him as

you

> have done me. He is a special educator with an M.Sc in adapted

> physical education. He has 28 years experience in disability,

> primarily autism and the development of autism in the blind. He

has

> been class-room and specialist PE teacher in special schools. He

has

> also taught/worked in the early intervention, primary(N,K, 1-6) and

> high school streams in Australia and the USA and trained student

> teachers in teaching methods while employed at Madison

> University in Virginia years ago. He specialises in working with

> those autistics presenting the most extreme and dangerous patterns

of

> behaviour. He works full time in the Behaviour Intervention

Service

> of Disability Services in , Australia. I apologise for

the

> length of this, but I feel it's important to clearly state who this

> man is and what he does. In fact, he himself has written to two of

> the better known Australian ABA specialists acknowledging the value

of

> the behaviour method, but challenging them by asking what was their

> operational hypothesis explaining being autistic as the normal state

> of autistics and the meaning of characteristic autistic behaviour(to

> autistics) as the necessary pre-condition to any systematic

> intervention program. It is a fundamental principle to establish

the

> meaning and function to that person of behaviour s/he presents

before

> attempting intervention. If one cannot explain the meaning of

> presented behaviour, then any intervention cannot be said to be

> systematic. Jim received no answers. His subsequent attempts to

> identify any statement by ABA people on the Internet or elsewhere

> acknowledging autism as the natural state of being for him and all

> other autistics has been to no avail. He says he can only assume

> they have a mthod, but no model, save perhaps the defect statements

of

> the diagnostic criteria in DSM-IV or ICD-10. Perhaps that is why

the

> terms " cure " and " recovery " are used again and again. Nowadays, a

> developmental model is supposed to be adhered to, that respects the

> reality of the individual from the start.

>

> I cannot emphasise 'respecting the individual from the start'

enough.

> I have received examples of just how Jim assists in managing the

> behaviour of those with autism and couldn't be happier. These are

> totally non-invasive and totally and utterly respectful. He went

to

> the trouble of forwarding me many examples.

>

> I'll give you an example to illustate the intervention technique.

In

> the case of an autistic child who has bitten another child - never

> make a fuss about the biting, but immediately insist the child who

bit

> does some other activity. This only works when the intervening

adult

> is absolutely neutral, i.e. bored-looking, in presentation, AND no

> mention of biting occurs in the hearing of the child who did the

> biting. After the child who bit has been cooperative and on-task

in

> an acceptable activity for 15-30 seconds give him reinforcement for

> his acceptable behaviour. If he resists complying with the task,

> then keep direct him to comply, allowing him the time to work

through

> any tantrum or avoidance behaviour until he does comply.

>

> Just to add, it is fairly common to hear of young ASD children

biting

> women on the body and breasts, but rarely men, in the classroom.

One

> reason is that men(especially professionals) tend to manage young

> children outside of their own body space, for obvious reasons.

> However, a visit to any school will see women staff sitting in close

> physical proximity, often with an arm around the back of ASD

children.

> In such close contact reactive ASD children quickly learn to

target

> the breats and nipples of women to make them go away. Initial

biting

> is purely random, but the strong and consistent responding of carers

> trains the behaviour into forms of communication and control. It

is

> simple operation learning.

>

> When Jim began working with one such 12 year old ASD boy in May 2001

> and, in a prolonged tantrum on the first day of the intervention, he

> jumped up from his chair across the other side of the table and

> reached straight out taking Jim's left nipple with perfect accuracy

> through his shirt and began twisting it. He was used to women

> teaching staff, who always sat next to him, covering up and

> withdrawing in pain and anger. Jim sat and smiled straight at him

> and he gave up and never did it again. This lad reportedly had no

> understanding of gender difference, but had learned over many years

> that there are spots to target on the fronts of people-objects. He

> also used to bite people very badly. He no longer does - it took

> about 24 months to extinguish all his problem behaviour and replace

it

> with acceptable communication.

>

> I apologise for the length of this, but I wanted to clearly

illustrate

> the type of intervention, that it is in no way punishing. I am

> totally against Lovaas' ABA and can't emphasise that enough. I

have

> been on a mission of late in this regard!

>

> Warmest Regards,

>

[Guest guest]

Hi " gprobs " ,

There is certainly nothing wrong with giving our ASD children a choice

in activity, in fact it does allow them to have control in a world in

which is often very frightening and confusing for them. The

compliance issue in terms of bringing the child back into his

routine(of what would normally be happening at that time is paramount

in ensuring his anxiety levels decrease, especially after h/she has

had a tantrum. After a tantrum, our tolerance decreases as we

fatigue. This is an important reason to maintain the regularity of

structure: routines, rules etc. When we are in a routine we can

relax a little and function on " auto pilot " for a bit. Otherwise we

are always hyper-vigilant - watching and checking everything and every

body, and then trying to sort out meanings. Anxiety is our most

dominant emotion.

When a child is confused or anxious, their only concern is that you

make them safe. We need to understand the function of the behaviour

as well in order to eliminate it. Was the incident caused by

invasion of personal space, for example, or sensory overload, maybe a

communication misunderstanding.

It's terribly important that we should be in absolute control of the

rules and procedures(that's not to mean being on some power trip).

Our children will test us to see that our rules are solid, that they

will be kept safe. Our sense of Self is always impermanent and very

fragile. You have an incredibly important role as a teacher in

ensuring your ASD child/ren have that structure and feel 'safe' and I

applaud you for your chosen role.

Just a little food for thought on choice theory. This is an excerpt

from a book discussing the ideas of Glass who is a very famous

US psychiatrist:

The Ten Axioms of Choice Theory

1. The only person whose behaviour we can control is our own.

2. All we can give another person is information.

3. All long-lasting psychological problems are relationship problems.

4. The problem relationship is always part of our present life.

5. What happened in the past has everything to do with what we are

today, but we can only satisfy our basic needs right now and plan to

continue satisfying them in the future.

6. We can only satisfy our needs by staisfying the pictures in our

Quality World.

7. All we do is behave.

8. All behaviour is Total Behaviour and is made up of four

components: acting, thinking, feeling and physiology.

9. All Total Behaviour is chosen, but we only have direct control

over the acting and thinking components. We can only control our

feeling and physiology indirectly through how we choose to act and think.

10. All Total Behaviour is designated by verbs and named by the part

that is the most recognizable.

I do think many parts of this have application in ASD, but remember

that our " Self " is always referenced to the

structure(routines/objects/people-objects) in which we " operate " .

Issues such as " feeling " will have to be understood differently by NTs

in relation to ASD people. What upsets NTs is often of no import to us.

I know, I do go on sometimes!!!

Regards,

-- In AutisticSpectrumTreeHouse , " gprobs "

<gprobs@y...> wrote:

> ok i know what you are talking about re jim. i have done the no

> response thing too, when being bitten. lol dissociation is a bit of an

> advantage on this. I would agree with what he does with exception to

> compliance over the one activity. i have a deep aversion to training

> for compliance. I would present two favoured activities, and stay

> with it until the child had chosen one. it seems a small difference,

> but it is about giving the child some control. lots of people insiste

> that you cannot give these children a choice because th ey are

> incapable of choosing when angry. i disagree. it does take longer,

> and i might have a few more bruises initially, but in the long run,

> there is a payoff when the child self selects something which was not

> offered and calms.

>

[Guest guest]

DUH. Hider-Finder: well I guess this is really " peek-a-boo " which

is also hide and seek and which turns into flirting and the like.

I suspect that if one does not " understand " peek-a-boo one does

not really understand flirting .. because fundametally, it's the same

frame.

[Guest guest]

Here's a thought...

We've heard several members here express generally favorable

opinions of RDI. I've said that it sounds good, in that it

doesn't seem to *force* children to do things they don't wish

to do. I think we should try to find out even more about it,

because if it's something we, the autistic community, could get

behind, then we should get behind it. After all that some of

us have been through, it may be hard to believe that there is

actually an approach that we could agree with and recommend to

those parents who are looking for something, anything, that

would help their child to make progress. Does anyone have the

time and inclination to do some research?

Clay

[Guest guest]

no our about it. i am not our. after rage or anguish, i cannot

sustain routine unless forced. i need to pace and talk and do my

thing which might not always be pretty. it makes ppl anxious. i dont

care. i need a stimmy thing to calm down. i think compliance is

about convenience, but for whom?

> > ok i know what you are talking about re jim. i have done the no

> > response thing too, when being bitten. lol dissociation is a bit

of an

> > advantage on this. I would agree with what he does with

exception to

> > compliance over the one activity. i have a deep aversion to

training

> > for compliance. I would present two favoured activities, and

stay

> > with it until the child had chosen one. it seems a small

difference,

> > but it is about giving the child some control. lots of people

insiste

> > that you cannot give these children a choice because th ey are

> > incapable of choosing when angry. i disagree. it does take

longer,

> > and i might have a few more bruises initially, but in the long

run,

> > there is a payoff when the child self selects something which was

not

> > offered and calms.

> >

[Guest guest]

to research it, you would really have to do the training, which

costs. i would like to, so i can know for sure if this is good, so I

am trying to get funding through work.

> Here's a thought...

>

> We've heard several members here express generally favorable

> opinions of RDI. I've said that it sounds good, in that it

> doesn't seem to *force* children to do things they don't wish

> to do. I think we should try to find out even more about it,

> because if it's something we, the autistic community, could get

> behind, then we should get behind it. After all that some of

> us have been through, it may be hard to believe that there is

> actually an approach that we could agree with and recommend to

> those parents who are looking for something, anything, that

> would help their child to make progress. Does anyone have the

> time and inclination to do some research?

>

> Clay

[Guest guest]

Clay wrote:

>...After all that some of

>us have been through, it may be hard to believe that there is

>actually an approach that we could agree with and recommend to

>those parents who are looking for something, anything, that

>would help their child to make progress.

The trouble (or, one trouble) is that whatever becomes

" the solution " to the " problem " (or " plague " ) of autism

will be packaged and sold by " autism professionals " to

highly anxious parents looking for a " silver bullet "

" cure " to apply to their children. No matter what

wonderful insights RDI contains, it will turn into a

coercive, ineffective, potentially abusive thing as soon

as insufficiently trained, less than insightful

practitioners working for pay begin to apply it " across

the board " according to inevitably simplified rules

meant to mass-produce (for profit) effects obtainable

only with a careful one-by-one application of an

individualized version of RDI (or whatever other method).

Jane (sorry to sound pessimistic but....)

P.S. In other words: I am not opposed to the idea of an

" autistic-approved " list of potentially useful approaches

to helping young autistics cope with the world (and to

helping teachers/parents/care-givers figure out how to

communicate better with autistics). But our *main*

recommendation would have to be along the lines of: " No

one approach/method is best for all, and none of these

potentially useful approaches/methods will be

beneficial if mass-applied or implemented badly. "

[Guest guest]

C B Bonham wrote:

>

>Is there anyone here who has done study in comparative

>cultures?

>Is there a society that does not look each other in

>the eye?

>

It seems to be considered an invasion of privacy (at least among strangers)

in Finland.

Ride the Music

AndyTiedye

[Guest guest]

C B Bonham wrote:

>In another place would we be shamans, prophets, or

>oracles?

>

>

Certainly.

>Is there some place in history and time where we would

>be allowed without judgement?

>

>

>

some of us are computer gurus and/or technoshamans ;^)

Ride the Music

AndyTiedye