Effectiveness of RDI Based Occupational Therapy Intervention for Children with Autism

OBJECTIVE: To find out the effectiveness of RDI based OT intervention in improving social interaction and communication for children with autism. DESIGN: Pre-test – post-test quasi experimental design. STUDY SETTING: The study was conducted in the Occupational Therapy Department of KMCH, Coimbatore. PARTICIPANTS: Purposive judgment sampling technique was used and children with autism were recruited if they satisfied the selection criteria. METHOD: The participants were divided into experimental and control groups. Following the baseline evaluation on GARS-2, the children in the experimental group received RDI based OT intervention in addition to the conventional therapy, while the control group received only conventional therapy. The experimental intervention lasted for 2 to 3 months. The outcome measure was done, after the sessions for both the groups. RESULTS: The children in the experimental group showed significant improvements in the social interaction and communication skills. And also there was significant reduction of the stereotypical behaviors while comparing the descriptive statistics. The analysis showed that there is reduction in the severity of the symptoms for the children in the experimental group. CONCLUSION: The current study had proved that RDI based OT intervention is effective in improving the social interaction and communication skills for children with autism and it can be used as an adjunct to the conventional therapy. Thus, the results encourage occupational therapists to use RDI as an adjunct intervention in a holistic approach