Who am I? What is RDI?

April 22, 2010

Hello! My name is Camelia Varga and I am an autism consultant, certified in RDI(tm), who lives in Montreal, Quebec.

I have decided to post a blog about the work I do in order to reach more families of children with Autism, Asperger and Pervasive Developmental Disorders. There are many of you who did not hear about a wonderful autism treatment that goes beyond teaching skills or modifying behaviors, straight to the core of the problem. The treatment is considered by many "the missing piece of the Autism puzzle". This amazing new generation treatment is called "Relationship Development Intervention" or RDI(tm) for short. The official website is www.rdiconnect.com and my own website is www.pro-autism.com.

The program remediates the core deficits of autism as opposed to teach skills that target symptoms of autism. I learned about this program in 2005 and soon after I started the certification program at Connections Center in Houston, TX. Previously to that I was involved in delivering one-on-one behavior modification programs, as well as supervising them. For at least six years I have perfected ways to become efficient in getting the children to respond in a certain way, to learn concept faster by using external reinforcers (reinforcers are edibles, toys, tickles, hugs, etc. that the child receives when he experiences success, such as a correct answer). The children were making progress but there was something missing: the children were still not able to share what was on their mind, they still avoided interactions with peers, they still had trouble dealing with change and they still seemed to have autism. I felt very bad about those aspects because I really wanted to affect the autism's core rather than help the child learn to count or read. I am not trying to diminish the importance of reading and counting and other such academic skills, but I think that there are other issues at hand (such as relating to other people and being able to actually feel something when reading a book). The RDI(tm) came as an answer to my prayers and it all fell into place. The success I started experiencing with families right from the start assured me that RDI is the answer for many families.

I will continue with the second part of "What is RDI" during the coming week.