Hi Russell

Good points you raise. The video taping can be problematic with older children (although thankfully younger children tend to either not notice the camera or find it interesting). We have some tips and tricks for getting around this now that weren't available back in the day. And Dr Gutstein has relaxed somewhat!

I have added an article about some RDI friendly communication tips to the FAQ page of our website. Not sure if self promotion is allowed here so will post the address but totally understand if you want to edit this post.

http://www.extraordinarylives.co.nz/faq.html

Hope this helps!

Disclaimer: I am a child psychologist and have worked as an autism specialist for the last 15 years. I was once was an ABA therapist and programme designer but became disillusioned at the 'results' ABA achieves. I decided to investigate what other countries were doing in terms of current therapy models. My research lead me to the United States where I trained in Relationship Development Intervention (RDI), a parent lead therapy programme modelled on the developmental path that neuro-typical children follow.

It is laughable that the media is picking up on ABA being a 'new' therapy and downright dangerous that they are labelling it as a 'miracle'. ABA is by no means new and is considered outdated by many specialists in the field. It's methodology, which uses rewards to 'train' desired behaviours in children, has inherent problems too numerous to outline here but I would encourage interested parties to do some research on this.

What no one seems to have mentioned is that there ARE other options that have arguably more positive outcomes for children and their families and are far more cost effective (RDI for example is approximately a tenth of the cost of ABA). An interesting comparison of ABA and RDI can be found via the link below.

http://www.extraordinarylives.co.nz/uploads/3/1/2/4/3124034/therapy_comparison_aba_and_rdi.pdf