Pooh's First RDA

In the RDI program the assessments are referred to as RDA-Relationship Development Assessment. In the RDA 1 the parents are interacting with their child as directed by the consultant. The King and I (no pun intended lol) were instructed to behave in certain ways with Pooh. At some point each of us tried to communicate non-verbally. Then at another point we shut down completely by not reacting to Pooh or doing anything really. This was all done in a room with beanbags and a few toys. There's a camera set up so that the consultant can tape the sessions for later review and also to see what's going on with a tv in another room. The RDA 2 is when the consultant is the one interacting with Pooh. She did different things with Pooh to try to determine where he's at developmentally in Emotion Sharing, Referencing, Flexible Thinking, etc. The RDA 3 is for the parents and the consultant to discuss where the child is at and what things are going to be worked on first. The parents are given objectives to work on and advice on activities to help the how-to part.

Pooh's first assessment went as i pretty much thought it would. No big surprises. And at the end, it was decided that our first goal was to work on Guided Participation, formally known as the Master/Apprentice Relationship. Basically, Pooh needs to learn that he can have a competant role in any interaction whether or not he's done the activity before or not. He lacks Resiliance in that he wants to do something and do it perfectly the first time or he gives up. "I can't do it!" is screamed often in this house. He also has a severe aversion to even simple redirection if he's not doing something quite right. Try homeschooling a boy like that and you'll understand that, for us, priority is getting him to a point where he can participate in a simple activity without giving up rather than on multiplication tables.

So that's what we're doing. Working on Guided Participation involves doing R-C-R'S. Lots of them. Regulation-Challenge-Reregulation You find a pattern, then make slight but noticible differences, then give the child the opportunity to find the pattern again. We've, or mainly myself but with the full support of The King, been doing R-C-R'S out the wazoo. Soon i'll post a list of the ones we've been doing. It sounds easier than it is at first. I've found that it requires a lot of mental effort to think of doing different patterns with different things, moving from one to the next and somehow managing to video tape for my consultant as well. I think it's gone pretty well so far, but i'll wait for the consultant's final judgement on that. :D