AvoidOvercompensatingforCommunicationIssues:LauraDeAngelo

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Laura DeAngelo, A.B., M.B.A., writes about avoiding the overcompensation trap when
helping your child become a competent communicator.
THE OVERCOMPENSATION TRAP
Many parents of children with autism unknowingly overcompensate for their child's
deficits in communication competence. Often parents (and other communication
partners), without consciously realizing, do most of the "work" in keeping the social
exchange going. The child may initiate communication, but walk away without waiting
for a response. The parent will then follow the child around in an attempt to keep the
communication going. Or, the child may speak, but not be oriented toward the partner.
The parent may then move his body or face toward the child in order to maintain the
social connection. Parents who have challenges getting a response from their child
may frequently prompt the child for language, believing that prompting for a response is
the "only way" to have a relationship with their child. Parents may also believe that,
given enough prompting, their child will eventually learn to have a typical
conversation without prompting. Alternatively, parents may continually try to adapt to
the childs interests or agenda in an effort to establish or maintain a social connection.
Parents, think again! In continually adapting to your child or being overly directive
with him, you are reinforcing his feeling that other people will do most of the "work" in
the communication exchange - either by directing the exchange for him or by adapting
to him. You are promoting the idea of a social exchange as a controlled or controlling
encounter by one partner or the other. You are in what I call the "overcompensation
trap."
GETTING OUT OF THE "TRAP"
There are many things that you, the parent, can do to start getting out of the
overcompensation trap and help your child learn to do more of the "work" in
communicating. Here are a few:
1. THINK about how much work you vs. the child are doing in initiating
communication or keeping the communication going. You may come to the conclusion
that you are doing most or all the work. This revelation is empowering in itself. It
should lead you to ask: How can I help my child to take on more of the responsibility in
the communication exchange?
True social communication, after all, is a balanced exchange, with both partners doing
more or less an equal share in keeping the exchange going and adapting to each other's
topical agenda and emotional state. In a real-life social situation, each partner is
continuously adapting to the mental state and needs of the social partner(s), while being
mindful of his own mental state and needs. The social encounter that unfolds represents
something completely novel, borne of out of this continuous mutual adaptation. Such

mutual adjustment is referred to as social "coregulation." In autism, coregulation often

is lacking due to the child's difficulties with adapting to the needs and mental state of
the social partner. Thus, the social encounter is often one-sided, and the result is often
based on the agenda of the parent only, or the child only, but not both together.
For more reading about coregulation, parents are encouraged to read Alan Fogel's book
"Developing Through Relationships," one of the works that inspired the RDI
Program. The book may be purchased through thewww.rdiconnect.com store.
2. SLOW DOWN to think and to let your child think. Parents sometimes believe that
prompting or maintaining a lot of language is the key to their child's progress. This is
not the case if the language is not the result of productive thought or "mindfulness."
True social communication involves thinking and responding flexibly within social
exchanges which, in most cases, don't involve direct prompts. It is important for parents
to build the child's competence in flexible and creative thinking during social
exchanges, not merely building proficiency in responding to prompted language or
using social scripts. Slowing down the pace of your communication and waiting before
you speak or respond to the child's communication will allow you time to think about
the encounter, moment to moment, and will allow your child critical time to think and
problem solve under your guidance.
3. REQUIRE MORE than just words in the communication exchange. Some parents
accept a communication exchange that is solely language based. They may talk at the
back of the child's head or accept a communication exchange with a child who is
running away, bouncing around the room, or climbing all over the parent. Parents who
accept such limited exchanges may feel that their child can never be competent with
true social communication, which involves many "channels" of communication used
simultaneously. These channels include not only language, but also facial
communication, vocal prosody, gestures, body language, personal space, etc.
EXPERIENCE OF AN RDI PARENT
In addition to training as an RDI Program Certified Consultant, I am a parent of a child
on the autism spectrum. Our family has been involved in an RDI program for about
five years. So how do I make sure that I am not falling into the overcompensation trap
myself? I have learned to raise the bar in my mind as to what my son's potential is in
communication competence. I have learned to create and spot opportunities for my son
to be challenged to be a better communicator. I focus on his thought process through the
encounter. And afterwards, I replay the incident in my mind to assess: What did I
learn? What did HE learn?
Let me give an example of a situation I have encountered in the past with my son:
Matt begins to talk to me, face to face, and then walks away from me into another room
while continuing to talk.
I am tempted to follow him to hear what he is saying. I am also tempted to prompt him
to come back into the room. But I stop myself. I think about the concept of
communicative balance and partners having equal responsibility to maintain
interactions and repair breakdowns. I think: Whoa! He is disconnecting from me

facially and physically. He is causing a breakdown in our communication exchange.

So, I must not overcompensate. I must let him REPAIR this disconnection. I WILL NOT
do it for him.
I realize that there is a Stage 3 RDI child objective that addresses this very issue. The
objective relates to the childs understanding that communication partners must be both
physically and mentally available in the communication exchange in order for the
exchange to be effective. This is a mental discovery that a typical child makes by the
time he or she is three years old.
What do I do to scaffold or assist my son in making this discovery? For the moment, I
do NOTHING. I just stand there, silently, rooted to the spot. And I wait. I am
intending to create a situation of PRODUCTIVE UNCERTAINTY for him, a state of
consciousness in which he feels a mental tension and is challenged to respond in a
flexible manner, but not obligated to do so.
Within about twenty seconds, he feels the uncertainty. He realizes that he is talking at
the air; his communication partner is no longer within range. The communication
exchange has broken down. So he must make a decision. If he wants to repair the
communication, he must do the work. He must seek me out.
He does. He walks back to me. He continues talking. I say nothing. I let him finish. I
wait to make sure he is attending me. Then I say "I missed the part where you walked
away from me." Again, he experiences productive uncertainty. What should he do? He
has to decide. If he wants to repair the communication exchange, he has to figure out
what part I missed and repeat it. But he is not forced to. He is free to say "Oh, that's
too bad!" and walk away if he wants to! He is free to respond any way he wishes. My
only requirement is that he processes and thinks about MY communication to him.
He chooses to repeat the part of his story I missed, and the conversation continues. I do
not praise him for anything he said or did. We just keep talking. (At times I may praise
him for his accomplishments. I dont praise his behavior; rather, I spotlight
(emphasize) his competence as a thinker.)
In the above example, I first needed to be mindful about my own thought process and
actions, in order to allow my son to make new mental discoveries. I needed to think
about the three principles above. I needed to keep myself from falling into the
overcompensation trap.
What did my son learn based on my thoughtful responses to his behavior? With the
deliberate scaffolding from me, he learned that he can recognize and successfully repair
communication breakdowns without being directly prompted to do so. He demonstrated
a step toward greater competence as a communicator.
NEXT STEPS FOR PARENTS
Any parent can do what I do. However, for most, it takes effort to learn to recognize
and make use of learning opportunities throughout daily life with your child. In many
cases parents need to retrain their brains to stop thinking about task completion and
behaviors as end goals and to think instead about the childs mental processes. This is

where RDI Program certified consultants come in. RDI consultants guide parents in
the process of retraining their own brains so that they can be effective guides to their
childs cognitive development. RDI consultants help parents become aware of the
areas in which they may be overcompensating for their child's communication deficits.
Consultants train parents in the level of support or scaffolding that provides optimal
learning opportunities for their child. Consultants also train parents in ways to frame or
structure guided learning situations so as to minimize distractions and maximize the
chance for new mental processes to develop. Finally, consultants teach parents how to
identify and "spotlight" key learning moments so that the new mental discovery and
feeling of competence will be captured in the child's memory.
My son is quite a competent communicator now (although he has not always been!) and
needs minimal framing, scaffolding and spotlighting. Most children, however, would
need higher levels of support for optimal learning. RDI consultants customize parent
training to account for the level of support the child needs at any point in time for
successful cognitive development.
Parents do not have to be stuck in the overcompensation trap any longer! Changing the
approach to the way you interact with your child can make all the difference in his or
her mental development and long-term outcome. If you would like to be empowered to
make such a difference for your child, contact an RDI Program Certified Consultant
for more information about The RDI Program for autism remediation. See
www.rdiconnect.com for list of consultants by area. Long-distance consulting is also
available for families in areas with no local consultant.