These are strange times. The current Covid-19 emergency has suddenly put us at the beginning of a time of family isolation. As parents of kids with disabilities, we are used to having a circle of support to keep our kids engaged and learning. Now it’s on us. We still have other things we have to do. How is this going […]

Reposted with permission of the author.  The original article can be found on his website:  imagine: Finding New Stories For People Who Experience Disabilities Several years ago I was asked to speak to a group of parents in Vermont. The title of the presentation was “Supporting Children With Special Needs.” Five minutes into my talk, a parent stood up and interrupted me. […]

When my son was 4 or 5, I brought him with his sister and some friends with their children to a spray park.  While I was busy with his sister, out of the corner of my eye I saw him walking – on the other side of the fence.  By the time I got to where I had seen him, […]

If you are the parent of a child with autism, you might be very busy with managing the here and now.  We spend a lot of mental energy looking for and maintaining services like daycare, education, and therapy.  Thinking about your child’s life as an independent adult might seem far away…or it might be something you worry about. Last week, […]

Lots of people think that Speech-Language Pathologists just help children who lisp. Helping kids to speak clearly is important, but we do a lot more! We evaluate and treat communication disorders in everyone from young children to elderly adults. We help people communicate effectively, from learning first words to the subtleties of effective conversation. We help children understand language, talk […]

Aleasha Whenham lives in rural Manitoba with her husband Jason and her 12-year-old son Jake, who was diagnosed with Salla disease, a rare genetic condition that results in a global developmental delay. She considers her family fortunate to be able to learn about RDI through the RELATE program. This reflection on parenting is shared from her blog, I Dream Things […]

I remember the first toy we bought my daughter that she actually liked. Up until then, we’d filled our house with baby toys, toddler toys, blocks, dolls, books, everything we could think of and afford that we thought would be fun.  She didn’t really play with these toys in the ways we expected, and for awhile I fell into the […]

This might be really obvious to some people, but for me it was a light bulb moment.  The trouble I had transitioning from ABA to developmental therapies was about trying to keep track of our goals and how we were working on them. So our RDI consultant wanted me to think about frames, with respect to parenting and teaching my […]