Rapid Motor Imitation Antecedent (Rmia) Training Manual: Teaching Preverbal Childrens With Asd to Talk, Research Edition

When you're working with preverbal children on the autism spectrum, you need a complete toolbox of highly effective strategies to expand their communication skills. Add Rapid Motor Imitation Antecedent Training (RMIA), and you'll have one of the most promising interventions for helping young children say their first words.

A discrete trial intervention approach for preschoolers with autism who have severe language delays, RMIA is a crucial step on the path to improved communication function. It's an easy-to-use method: children imitate a rapid series of simple motor actions and are then asked to imitate a word. The momentum they build by performing the easy motor actions helps them comply with the more difficult task of word production.

A must for SLPs and autism specialists, RMIA is an ideal addition to your current lineup of strategies and supports:

• Experimentally tested at the Yale Child Study Center, one of the nation's top autism treatment centers.
• Originally developed since 2002 at Teachers College, Columbia University and proven effective for helping young children develop functional speech.
• Perfect to use in tandem with naturalistic interventions like Parent Responsiveness Training.
• Focused specifically on initial imitation of words—a critical step toward using language spontaneously.
• Quick and easy to implement—RMIA should be administered in short, frequent doses, making it an easy fit with your everyday practices.

The only product available that shows SLPs and autism specialists how to conduct RMIA, this manual-and-CD set gives you everything you need for successful implementation. You'll get complete, practical guidance in the accessible how-to manual, and the CD-ROM gives you a full hour of explicit demonstration videos that show case studies of RMIA in action. You'll also get printable data collection forms to help organize RMIA sessions and assist in data keeping (both blank forms and completed samples).

A key component of your comprehensive intervention program for social communication, RMIA will help young preverbal children overcome the hurdles to saying their first words—and start making real progress toward communicative competence.

Ioanna Tsiouri, Ph.D., Psychologist/Behavior Analyst, is currently working as a psychologist and behavior analyst in the Psychiatric Department of the University Hospital of Larisa in Greece. Her primary clinical research experience has been with nonverbal preschool children with autism spectrum disorders and their language development.

Rhea Paul, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, is a professor and founding director of the speech-language pathology graduate program at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, an affiliate at Haskins Laboratories, and Professor Emerita at Southern Connecticut State University.

She received her B.A. from Brandeis University, her master’s degree in reading and learning disabilities from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and her Ph.D. in communication disorders from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has been a principal investigator on research projects on language disorders and autism funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, the National Institute of Child Health and Development, the National Alliance for Autism Research, Autism Speaks, the Meyer Memorial Trust, and the Oregon Medical Foundation, and was a principal investigator at the Yale Autism Center of Excellence.

She is the author of more than 100 refereed journal articles, 50 book chapters, and ten books. Along with colleague Donia Fahim, she hosts the podcast Let's Talk about Super Special Kids and Cake on iTunes and Spotify, aimed at supporting parents of children with disabilities.

In 1996, she received the Editor's Award from the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology and was awarded the inaugural Ritvo/Slifka Award for Innovative Clinical Research by the International Society for Autism Research in 2010. She has been a fellow of the American Speech-Language Hearing Association since 1991 and received Honors of the Association in 2014.

Elizabeth Schoen Simmons, M.S., CCC-SLP, is a Ph.D. candidate in Cognitive Psychology at the University of Connecticut. She received her B.A. in communication disorders and M.S. in speech-language pathology from Southern Connecticut State University. She is a National Science Foundation fellow and recipient of a predoctoral training grant funded by the National Institute of Health to evaluate language processing using eye tracking and electroencephalography in late talking toddlers. Ms. Simmons has authored peer-reviewed publications and book chapters on various topics in communication disorders.

Moira Lewis, M.S., CCC-SLP, is a certified speech-language pathologist working in clinical research at the Marcus Autism Center, an affiliate of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. She leads social-communication assessment procedures within longitudinal research protocols designed to investigate early emergence of autism and diagnostic stability throughout development.