Relationship Development Intervention with Young Children

By Steven E. Gutstein and Rachelle K. Sheely (2002). Published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

While the research literature on Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome has described the profile of social reasoning of such children, there have been remarkably few publications that have provided a framework of guidelines and activities to improve social reasoning skills, especially in the area of relationships.

The principle author of ‘Relationship Development Intervention with Young Children’, Steven Gutstein, has worked as a family therapist and recently focused his attention on clients with an autistic spectrum disorder. The book provides a series of exercises based on the Relationship Development Intervention model or RDI. Previous publications by the authors have provided a review of the relevant literature and the rationale for RDI. This volume is primarily written for parents, teachers and therapists as a resource for children from two to nine years. The second volume is for adolescents and adults.

The text covers topics such as social referencing, regulating behaviour, conversational reciprocity and synchronised actions. The authors use a developmental and objective base system with clear recording procedures and forms. The activities are explained and presented in a logical and user-friendly manner. Child psychologists and psychiatrists are likely to recommend the book for parents and teachers, but will probably incorporate some of the activities in their own clinical practice. For example, the authors explain to children during the therapy sessions that when they play a game with a friend, they are really playing two games, one game is in front of them, the other is the friendship game; winning the friendship game can be more important. The programs developed by Gutstein and Sheely have not been subjected to rigorous scientific study. However the book should become extremely popular as there are few competitors in this area, and a huge demand from parents and teachers to know what to do to improve the relationship skills of children with Asperger’s Syndrome and related disorders.