“This is Tina. She’s my RDI® consultant and I am her client”. These are the words of a young man I’ve worked with from the time he was a little boy as he introduced me to one of his classmates. While factually what he said is a true statement, in many respects he’s very much mistaken. Truth is he’s so much more than a client to me because he has helped shape not only my career, but he’s responsible for igniting my passion for helping children and families with Autism. This is the story of a boy named Johnny (name changed for confidentiality).
Even early on in my pursuit of a Psychology degree, I knew that I wanted to help children on the Autism spectrum. In one of my classes they put out a call for students that wanted to help out with shadowing at school and a 1:1 home program for two young children. It was then, nearly 13 years ago, I met my very first “clients” or children that I had the pleasure of working with, Johnny and his older sister Mary (name changed for confidentiality). We worked together for several years until I took a full-time position which had the unfortunate consequence of not being able to work with Johnny and Mary any longer.
Years passed, but I kept in touch with how they both were doing through another consultant friend of mine that was still working with them. I was always glad to hear that they were doing well and was intrigued when I learned that they were beginning to work with a new program called RDI®. I had been hearing about this new approach and the thought of helping kids get on a more typically developmental path really started to appeal to me. Finally, I could no longer deny that becoming an RDI® consultant was what I really wanted to do. I made a leap of faith and joined a small team of friends and former co-workers who’d already become RDI® certified consultants. As an added bonus, both Johnny and Mary were clients of my new firm and I’d see them from time to time at our office. I was able to hear of and see for myself the progress they’d made since my days working with them long ago.
Fast forward several years and here I am a certified RDI® consultant. I’ve had the pleasure of helping children and their families connect on a profound level. In an unexpected turn of events, I’ve even had the good fortune to once again work with Johnny and Mary. They’ve grown so much since I first worked with them so many years ago. Then again, so have I. The progress and growth I’ve heard about, I now have the privilege of witnessing for myself. Johnny has made progress in the areas of self-awareness and we are working on him becoming more independent, advocating for himself and recognizing and dealing with events when they are “beyond his edge”.
This brings us back to him introducing me as his consultant and identifying himself as my client. To him I’d say, “No, Johnny. You are more than that. You are a special soul and because of you I have passion to help parents and children. Because of you I have had the pleasure to see the beautiful impact RDI® can have on families and lives especially yours. Because of who you are I want to continue to help support and guide you to grow and develop. My hope is that I can influence your life in such positive manner as you have done for me and return the favor.”
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