Musings on the Association Method and RDI

I love interacting with other people online because they give me wonderful insights. A few months ago, some parents and professionals interested in RDI, whether are not they have or are consultants. For one reason or another, RDI is out of reach for some families, and this list, called Autism Remediation for Our Children, is a place where people can connect and learn relational ways of remediating autism from each other.

This week, we were talking about verbal behavior (VB), a form of speech therapy that is based on the principles of ABA, and I know very little about VB. I did share what is working very well with Pamela, the association method, which can dovetail nicely with RDI, depending upon how you implement it. One person pointed out that verbal behavior focuses on imperative language (right or wrong questions, commands, prompts). RDI, which focuses on declarative language (sharing what you experience), does not mesh well with VB because of the kind of language taught. That comment inspired me to think about the association method in a new light!

Of the he first six sentences and questions taught, five are declarative and only one is imperative.

This is a/an _______. What is this?
I see a/an ______. What do you see?
I have a/an ______. What do you have?
I want a/an _______. What do you want?
______ has a/an _______. What does _______ have?
This is ________. Who is this?

I never thought of this, but much of what the association method teaches is for children to describe what they see in the form of stories, stories about animals, inanimate objects, people, rooms, etc. Slowly, you add on to the basic structure with adjectives, prepositions, other articles, etc. Then, you introduce past tense and future tense to work on experience stories. EXPERIENCE STORIES! That sure sounds like opportunities for experience sharing to me!

We did get back to the Yellow Books (syntax-controlled readers) which we are using to supplement what we do with the association method. I will share more later about our first day of school (I have to edit and process the footage first). Pamela was fabulous as always and enjoyed eating a sandwich (made with gf/cf cheese and bread), soy pudding, and fresh berries from her lunch box. She is so sweet and hard-working!