Relationship Development Intervention with Children, Adolescents and Adults

My overall impression of this book is that is contrived and forced in places. The book is structured around a layered model of progress; essentially progressing the student from the lowest level of competence on through higher levels. One might presume that the authors were stuck for a teaching metaphor and grabbed the apprentice-expert metaphor as scaffolding on which to hang the lessons. The book is replete with various lesson plans and tactics for enagaging the AS person's interest. To be fair, a reasonable amount of what is here is worthwhile reading and reflecting on - once you filter out the esotericism of much of the language.However, the book seems to stumble as it tries to fill its 400 odd pages with 'advanced' lesson plans. Some of the section titles made me wonder was this a case of Asperger Syndrome meets Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The AS subject moves through Novice, Apprentice, Challenger, Voyager and Partner levels as just one example. There are sublevels within each of these. Finding one's unique idenitity and place in the environment etc, are major objectives.The tenor of a lot of this, for me at least, verged on almost cultish twaddle. I prefer a reasonable scientific tenor to any behavioural modification programme. However, others may find the book's approach illuminating and helpful.The book emphasises coaching and that the real business of interventions is coaching. My problem with this is that it doesn't tie coaching into any particular theory - though if you take one of the authors' RDI courses presumably the theory will be revealed. There is a growing emphasis on putting intervention programmes on some sort of scientific footing, and it behooves the authors of such programmes to produce the goods on the worth of their offerings. I would recommend looking at Succeeding with Interventions for Asperger Syndrome Adolescents for a different approach.The latter sections of the book, in my opinion, presume a lot of the AS subject. In particular the use of others to faciliate interaction, learn about emotions and generally mediate social interactions is just not a an easy thing to acomplish with an AS subject. The 'partner' that turns up today may not be there tomorrow. So how do you coach an AS teenager to fall back on there own resources?The authors state that the book is suitable for use by parents, adolescents and adults, teachers and therapists (not many left out there). Personally I found this to be the most questionable claim of the whole book. How on Earth can it be a manual satisfying the requirements of such different audiences. It is verging on cyncical to suggest it has so much to offer to so many.In conclusion, there are aspects of the book that are useful and other aspects that I found incongrous, if not downright peculiar. If I had a larger budget, I would definitely prefer Kathleen Quill's book, Do-Watch-Listen-Say even though it is not explicitly aimed at adolescents, and couple it with one of the Boystown Teaching Basic Social Skills to Youth as a more convincing pair. It is a personal choice, and different people may have different requirements.

I needed a good resource book for work and this covers everything I needed.

This book has many, many activites to use with students who struggle with building social relationships. It is laid out a bit awkwardly and takes a while to figure out how to use it best.

This book was on my professor's "required book list" for a BCBA course. It has been an excellent resource in the special education classroom. Recommended for professionals and parents of children/young adults who have a difficult time with socialization.

It is well researched, easy to read, practical and possibly revolutionary approach, for helping people on the autism spectrum to engage with others. I highly recommend it as a reference book where it can be used to supplement other intervention techniques

Seems a bit outdated. This book was recommended by psychologist to use with an ADHD kid. Not user friendly in my opinion.

I purchased these for work. It is a great book.

But personally disappointing. As a thirty-year-old who has been diagnosed with both Asperger's Syndrome and NLD, I picked this up at an ASA conference expecting to find it immediately useful. Instead, I took the test at the back (which is designed for caregivers/administrators, not adults on the spectrum... why can't they do simple rewrites so we don't have to?), only to find out that I tested out as to relationally immature for this book, and should refer to the previous one in the series. Which is recommended for use with children under 8, and whose activities are decidedly not age appropriate, nor can I find a way to re-write them enough to make them so. A warning, though: RDI significantly changes the personality of the person who goes through it. In a young child, this may not be noticeable or unwanted, but in an older child or adult, you may wish to ask their permission before putting them through this very thorough and intrusive therapy. As an adult, I am uncomfortable with the changes I saw produced in people who have gone through it, and would not consider it for myself. I like the personality I have, quirks, prickles, and all. Novotni's book, "What Does Everybody Else Know That I Don't" was more immediately useful, as it contained some precise suggestions on things to do or ask that did not involve extreme changes in personality or behavior.There still exists a major gap in literature on relational development for ADULTS on the spectrum, since even those of us who are "high-functioning" tend to be low-functioning socially. While Gutstein's Solving the Relationship Puzzle, and Gutstein and Sheely's RDI book I'm currently reviewing have shown me what developmental milestones I have yet to cross, they don't provide any practical solutions for someone my age to begin the process... unless we're already at an intermediate level I, at least, have failed to achieve.The caveat to this is that I expect this and it's companion book to be more useful for young children, and have recommended reading them to the parents of several children that I work with as a Respite/Habilitative Care Provider and to professionals at a school for developmentally disabled children where I work as a Classroom Aide. I have found ways to modify the activities in the first book to be suitable for children up into their early teens, and recommend use of this book as a follow-up for those who have mastered the activities in book 1.

As described. No problems.