What we know about the brain

Brain research conducted over the past forty years demonstrates that the typically developing brain functions through dynamic collaboration between all of its parts. Current studies also show that information processing in the brain of a person affected with autism occurs in discreet centers of the brain. Limited neural pathways between the brain's processing centers results in less collaboration between the sites.

For this reason, a person with autism may lack the ability to rapidly shift through a series of associative responses when presented with a given stimulus. For a person with autism, a rose may simply be a rose; a kind of flower. Presented with the same stimulus, however, a typically developing person may think of Shakespeare, or he may recall the smell of the rose oil worn by his grandmother, he may think of a close friend by that name, or he may remember that he has to buy some new gardening gloves before he can trim back the rose bushes in his yard next spring.

Brain under-connectivity is responsible for a great many of the challenges faced by children with ASD. Lacking the ability to rapidly shift between the functions of multiple brain centers means that people with autism often have difficulty processing shifting contexts, communication that depends on not just words but facial expression, body language, prosody etc, and problem-solving when there may be more than one right answer. For this reason, the world may seem to be a chaotic and overwhelming place and it feels comfortable and safe to develop static routines, doing the same thing in the same place with the same people. Many of the stereotyped behaviors that describe a person with autism are coping mechanisms developed in response to feelings of incompetence navigating the very dynamic world in which we live.

Fortunately, we also know that the brain is an experience-dependent organ. It develops according to what we regularly ask it to do. Remember what it felt like the first time you undertook the complex task of driving a car. That first time behind the wheel you had to juggle new motor skills, complex and rapid calls for judgment, symbolic reasoning and knowledge of the rules -- all while staying on the road. Compare that with the automatic way you accomplish the same task today after years of driving. Your brain has remarkably developed the ability to manage this complex information processing task because you have challenged it to do so. Your brain has developed according to the experiences it has processed.

Unfortunately, many people hold low-expectations for the capacity of the autistic brain to develop the ability to process information in a dynamic way. Education programs are often designed to illicit a "correct" response from the student when they are presented with certain stimulus. Success is declared when a child gives the same answer or response to that stimulus with a high level of consistency over time. This type of learning may have its place in a limited context but without also focusing on dynamic thinking skills it will, in effect, reinforce the very static nature of processing that presents the child with autism with such challenges. The brain will develop in response to what we are asking it do.

RDI^® works because it integrates:

• what we know about how the typical person processes information
• What we understand about the capacity for the brain to develop over time
• strategies for using the guided participation relationship to introduce cognitive challenges that make a real difference in a person's ability to understand the world in a dynamic fashion.