Parent Testimonials
(Thank you to all the parents who have contributed to our testimonials section. We find it so rewarding to hear your family's success stories. If you are interested in submitting a testimonial, please email Debbie at debbie@kidsahead.net.)
"Our son has had a wonderful experience with the Craft Club. This was his first social skills group experience that was truly meaningful for him. I liked that the group was small and supported by the RDI® staff. The activities were terrific and the children were encouraged to be spontaneous, play and interact without prompting...truly great! Our consultant has worked with us in the home setting to imrpove our quality of life as a family. She also helped us to bring RDI® into the classroom setting by consulting with the teachers and the staff. She is working with us now to help us to continue to work on our child's long term development issues. I can honestly say that the RDI® program has changed our lives. We have not seen this much growth and development in our son since he began to recieve services. What is truly remarkable is that he is doing it naturally and on his time table versus sitting and doing drills all day with a stranger. We also have an RDI® extender who works with us and also accompanies our son to the classroom. We love it!" -Donna C., NJ
"We have been at the shore all week and I just got your e-mail. Nicholas is doing awesome! I was wishing I had my video camera everywhere we went to capture his natural referencing (different from my set up lab time activities). For example, today and Thursday Nicholas and Luke actually went swimming a little in the freezing ocean. He would look over his shoulder to reference my okay and approval, to share smiles and to make sure he was near me. This is new as he did not do this last year. Also at the Cape May zoo, Nicholas referenced me for information at every display. I am so excited I want to just move to the shore and live the RDI® lifestyle (haha...definitely easier to be relaxed and on RDI® all day when on vacation). Something else is happening too. Nicholas is now starting to comment and laugh appropriately when Luke and I; or Anthony, Luke and I are talking. Typically he has little reaction but this seems to be changing developmentally. For example we were out to dinner and a news camera was videoing. Nicholas laughed as we talked about how silly it was that a camera was filming the dinner trays he laughed and said, "The story of bread" and we all laughed together at his joke. When driving in the car Luke and I take songs on the radio and change the words to silly words to sing (Luke is a weird Al fan) and now Nicholas is laughing right along with us and even saying some silly words! RDI® is great!" - Amy, PA
"Nicholas is initiating and emotion sharing everywhere! We see a real difference in him - Also, your stand up / sit down procedure is a miracle!! Thanks so much. We have to do arms up / arms down instead sometimes & he is 99% yelling free!" - Amy, PA
"I am back in RDI® mode and things are going VERY well. Last week and even this weekend there were a few times that Jack did something that annoyed me and when I would talk to him about it he would apologize but for the first time I think the apology was truly sincere. This morning I have an example: He has become a candy/fruit snack freak and EVERY morning he asks if he can have candy for the walk to the bus (this walk consists of 6 houses) and EVERY morning I tell him no. So this morning, here comes the question and I looked at him and with INCREDIBLE eye contact on his part, I said Jack, I am not going to tell you this again, there is no candy in the morning. He makes this noise when he is disappointed and the noise happens right before he throws himself on the floor, so the noise was starting to come out of his mouth and I looked him right in the eye and said, I do not think you are about to do that are you? He stopped immediately and looked at me and said "Mommy, I am sorry, I did not want to make you mad" He walked over to me, gave me a huge hug and said he was sorry again. THEN, he says, "I will not ask this anymore Mommy, I promise." I explained to him why he cannot have candy in the morning and he accepted it well and told me he was sorry and the morning went on without a hitch. He really has been communicating well and I can see that he is a little more intuned to other people's emotions and not just doing what he has been taught in certain situations, but truly caring that these emotions happen and trying to handle them. Moments like this make me really excited so I had to share!" - Tracy, NJ
"I am impressed with how quickly Maya is able to understand non-verbal communication. She is much more likely to be calm and attuned to me when I do not bombard her with verbal commands. I also feel more connected with Maya during our interactions using non-verbal and short, simple phrases. I used to get worried about weekends and breaks as how to spend the day with Maya. Now with RDI® I actually look forward to weekends and breaks! - Unkyu, NJ
"I have been thinking about your feedback regarding the importance of Maya seeing me as a pattern in our activity. The more I think about it the more I realize how important this is! Maya is intelligent enough to see the pattern pretty quickly but does not see me (other person) as a part of it. Therefore, once she figures out what the pattern (task) is she will tend to complete it all on her own. If I made the pattern a bit more challenging so that she needs my help, she will have no problem asking for help and include me in the pattern (e.g. if I moved the materials we are using for the activity up on a high shelf)---but the interaction will then become instrumental. This is in fact what happens also with her language--- mostly instrumental. I realize now that how crucial this point is. These (non-verbal) interactions are really the prototype of verbal interactions (communication). The key is to find a way to make her want to include me in the pattern to simply share the experience. We have done the laundry swing-and-toss activity that you showed us and Maya consistently initiates the role-sharing interaction. I will really focus on more of these role-sharing activities from now on." - Unkyu, NJ
