The Guide Training Program
Are you a professional that works with individuals with autism or other developmental disabilities? Do you want to make a stronger connection with them? Do you want to take part in improving their quality of life? Do you want to do more than teach skills that compensate for their deficits? Do you want to help them reach their true potential?
Teachers and therapists have a unique and special opportunity to change and improve the lives of individuals with autism and other disabilities. The guide training program is designed for professionals that want to learn how to become more effective with the individuals they work with. Professionals often are taught and believe that individuals with autism and other disabilities learn only in a static way. Static skills are taught through discrete trial, repetition and rewards. This, however is not how typical developing children learn nor does not lay the groundwork for motivation and interest in learning throughout life. According to the 21st Century Learning Initiative,
"The brain learns best when it is trying to 'make sense'. When it is building on what it already knows. When it is working in complex, situated, circumstances. When it accepts the significance of what it is doing. When it is exercising in highly challenging but low threat environments."
Professionals will learn that individuals with autism and other disabilites can learn the way typically developing children do. They will learn how to adjust their current approach with these individuals to allow for this type of learning, therefore improving their motivation to continue learning and overall quality of life.
In the Guide Training Program, professionals will work directly with an RDI Program Certified Consultant to evaluate and address various strengths and weaknesses in their ability to adequately guide their clients. Your consultant will provide ongoing support and guidance as you better yourself as a professional and begin to make real differences in the lives of the clients that you work with.
Professional Workshops
If you have a group of professionals that would like an overview of RDI® theory and application, Extraordinary Minds provides professional workshops. During a workshop, professionals will be provided with the most recent research on autism and child development and how that research can be applied in daily interaction with their students or clients. Workshops are a combination of lecture, hands on activities and modeling to demonstrate techniques, video of children in the RDI® Program and case consultations where professionals can present a case and receive guidance as to how to best work with that student or client.
Options:
2 Hour Introduction to RDI
Half Day Workshop (4.5 hours)
Full Day Workshop (6.5 hours)