Speaker Brings Insight Into Autism [AUDIO]

Successful treatments for autism have eluded the medical profession, for the most part. Which is why a Casper couple has invited Lisa Lindt to give a presentation at the Community Health Center of Central Wyoming on Wednesday evening.

Lindt is a protege of Dr. Steven Gutstein, who came up with a behavior-based program that some say does help. Relationship Development Intervention, or RDI, was developed by Dr. Gutstein to test whether the cognitive milestones that medical convention said were beyond people with autism, actually were, in fact, beyond them.

Cognition is there, can be developed:

"He's a child psychologist who's devoted his whole life to developing a program to help autistic children as well as adults. The program is done through training the parents or the caregiver on how to work with the child or the adult. It's strictly about behavior modification."

Carolea Radke, who is the co-host of the presentation given by Lisa Lindt, says that medication doesn't work for autism, and because autism can be so debilitating, caregivers need to know about RDI.

Presentation time and place:

"We're going to be holding it at the Community Health Center of Central Wyoming, which is located on 1522 East A Street in Casper. It's going to be April 13th, this Wednesday evening, at 7 pm."

Parking and the entrance to the auditorium is on the west side. Ms. Radke said the program works by re-establishing basic communication patterns which help someone with autism think through the chaos of thoughts without direction or context or priority.

Communication provides path:

"They have a million distractions, and so you might think that they're not listening, or they're mentally retarded--they're just not getting it--and that's what it appears, but really, all we have to do is slow it down and teach them to shut down all of the neural pathways except the one they need to focus on at this moment, and that's what this program does."

People interested in attending the presentation will need to reserve a seat.

Free presentation, limited seating:

"If you're interested in coming, we do have limited seating; please give me a call at area code (307)315-7761, that way we can make sure we have room for you."